Housed in a small office space in Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell Jr. state office building, the Museum of African American Cinema (MoAAC) contains over 4,000 collectible items, from vintage film prints to original costumes from films like Malcolm X and Ghost Dad.
Gregory Javan Mills, Ernest N. Steele and 20 other founding members established MoAAC as a non-profit back in 2001, after seeing the need for black representation among other collections of American cinema.
“I used to cringe when I’d see a montage of great American films, and not one black film,” says Mills. “So that’s why we’re here, to tell our story.”
Mills is currently seeking funds to display the collection in a permanent space. Below, find a video giving a look inside the collection, from Narratively: