Mission
The mission of the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums (BTA) is to transform art museums into more equitable and excellent spaces of cultural engagement by harnessing trustees as agents of change.
Photo: Juliette Contin, 2020.
Our Impact: BTA FIVE C'S
Trustees play a vital role within museums, as stewards of vision, culture, accountability and financial sustainability. Home to over 250 Black trustees serving 120+ art museums across North America, BTA equips trustees to lead their institutions toward a more equitable and inclusive future.
We developed BTA’s Five C’s for Trustee Impact as a framework for trustees to serve with clarity and courage in this new terrain. It is a blueprint for aligning our efforts, leveraging our leadership, and holding the line on progress that has been made over generations.
Rooted in BTA’s founding principles, the “Five C’s” are the core pillars of impact that are essential for advancing equity and excellence in art museums:
- Colleagues: Promote the hiring, retention, and advancement of underrepresented talent in museum leadership and boards.
- Community: Champion museums as thriving spaces for underrepresented communities.
- Canon: Advance the enduring representation of underrepresented artists in museum collections, exhibitions and programs.
- Codes: Embed inclusion as mission-essential, codifying policies and practices in day-to-day museum operations.
- Capital: Steward inclusive resource allocation, investment, and patronage of underrepresented vendors, contractors & professional service providers.
Our Story
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in the late summer of 2020, a group of Black trustees from New York-area art museums was convened by Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation; Elizabeth Alexander, President of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and Thelma Golden, Director of The Studio Museum in Harlem, for the purpose of opening a dialogue about the state of diversity and conflict at participants’ respective institutions. The following month, a subset of the group—led by Gabrielle Sulzberger, Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Victoria Rogers, Trustee of the Brooklyn Museum, and seed-funded by the Ford Foundation—formed a Steering Committee to create a strategic plan for an organization that would help Black trustees more effectively diversify and govern their institutions. The Steering Committee represented a diverse range of museums that varied by city, scope, and collection type, and from their work the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums was born.
Illustration: Anna Wanda Gogusey / Le Quotidien de l’Art, 2021.
Founding Committee (2020-2021)
Victoria Rogers
Founder & Co-Chair
Brooklyn Museum
Gabrielle Sulzberger
Founder Emeritus & Co-Chair
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Troy Carter
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
N. Anthony Coles
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Edith Cooper
Museum of Modern Art
Denise B. Gardner
The Art Institute of Chicago
Edward Greene
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
AC Hudgins
Museum of Modern Art
Pamela J. Joyner
The Art Institute of Chicago | Museum of Modern Art | J. Paul Getty Trust | San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Alison Leland
The Menil Collection
Raymond J. McGuire
The Studio Museum in Harlem | Whitney Museum of American Art
Celeste Watkins-Hayes
Detroit Institute of Arts