The Anita Glass Memorial Lecture: Turry Flucker, Inclusive Fellowships: The American Missionary Association, Race Relations, and American Art

The Department of the History of Art & Architecture
, 120

In 1942, Dr. Charles S. Johnson began a series of seminars known as the Race Relations Institute (RRI) on the campus of Fisk University which was funded in part by the American Missionary Association. This forum encouraged notable figures to offer research and discussion on racial parity, and it created a standard method for holding a national dialogue on race. Johnson and his colleagues understood the importance of art and humanities as effective tools to advance racial equality. His conversation will focus on the history of art collections at institutions that were founded by or associated with the American Missionary Association.

Turry M. Flucker has served as the Vice President of Collections and Partnerships for the Terra Foundation for American Art since August 2022, where he oversees the foundation’s American art collection as well as fosters collaborative partnerships throughout the field. Previously director and curator of Tougaloo College Art Collections in Tougaloo, MS, Flucker provided the artistic vision guiding the stewardship of the college’s art collections and cultivated a range of national partnerships. He curated and authored the traveling exhibition and catalogue Art and Activism at Tougaloo College, co-organized by the American Federation of Arts, and he organized the teaching exhibition FREEDOM: Abstract Expressionism, Tougaloo College and the Civil Rights Movement.

 

This talk is the 2023 Anita Glass Memorial Lecture.