BLAX MUSEUM | michellesmith

BLAX MUSEUM | Creator, Producer, Director, Curator & Performer

BLAX MUSEUM is an annual performance showcase created by Michelle R. Smith that is open to all forms and dedicated to honoring notable black figures in American history and culture. BLAX MUSEUM features Black artists from all over Northeast Ohio, celebrating our ancestors through inspired tributes, original art, and even educational presentations.

Since its inception, BLAX MUSEUM has paid tribute through music, poetry, speeches, monologues, photography, and even stand-up comedy to such heroes, icons, and innovators as Cannonball Adderly, Maya Angelou, Crispus Attucks, Anita Baker, Josephine Baker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Octavia Butler, Lucille Clifton, Alice Childress, George Clinton, Allen E. Cole, John Coltrane, Frederick Douglass, Mari Evans, "Stagecoach" Mary Fields, Aretha Franklin, Nikki Giovanni, Fannie Lou Hamer, Fred Hampton, Jimi Hendrix, Billie Holiday, bell hooks, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, George Jackson, Mahalia Jackson, Etta James, Mae Jemison, June Jordan, Etheridge Knight, Henrietta Lacks, Audre Lorde, Bridget "Biddy" Mason, C.H. Mason, Toni Morrison, Gordon Parks, Richard Pryor, Paul Robeson, Asaata Shakur, Ntozake Shange, Nina Simone, J.B. Stradford, Harriet Tubman, A'Lelia Walker, Alice Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Ida B. Wells, Molly Williams, Winston E. Willis, and Bill Withers, among many revered others.

The event happens every February at its "home": the East Cleveland Public Library. Each year, Michelle serves as producer, director, curator, and performer (Henrietta Lacks (2018), Ntozake Shange (2019), A'Lelia Walker (2020), Lucille Clifton (2022), and Nina Simone (2023)).

In its third year (2020), the event expanded to a second venue, the Twinsburg Public Library, which went on to host the fourth annual, but first digital BLAX MUSEUM, with Michelle serving as executive producer and curator, on its YouTube channel in February 2021.

In February 2023, BLAX MUSEUM gave a very special performance at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in conjunction with its "This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement" exhibition (October 2022-April 2023).

Click on the BLAX MUSEUM schedule page for this year's dates, times, and locations.

For more information about BLAX MUSEUM, or if you are interested in becoming a part of the event or hosting a performance, contact Michelle R. Smith at clevelandblaxmuseum@gmail.com or 330-622-0606.