Dear Friends,

The four Carnegie Museums are an integral part of a vibrant community. It is a community, however, that shares with the rest of America a tragic history of profound injustice and often lethal violence against people whose race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity in any way sets them apart from those who define themselves as the sole possessors of what it means to be truly American, or even to be truly human. 

When the Carnegie Museums were founded in 1895, our nation was in the middle of the terrible period we remember with deep shame and sorrow as the era of Jim Crow segregation. What sense can we make of the fact that events like the murder of George Floyd are still occurring, 125 years later? 

Our institutions are charged, as a matter of public trust, with preserving, interpreting, and sharing with our community the record of humanity in all its inspiring, consoling, enlightening, and challenging variety. Whatever hurts and divides our community is profoundly harmful to the mission we have made our life’s work and therefore to the trust the public has placed in us. 

We share the grief and understand the rage of black citizens and all people of color, who have done so much over centuries to build our nation and our region, only to encounter time and again such searingly clear evidence that racism persists and that too many of their fellow citizens continue to regard them as less than fully American, less than fully human. At the same time, we are all too well aware that our museums have not been as open or welcoming to all members of our community as we aspire to be. 

I moved to Pittsburgh just a few months ago from our nation’s capital, where in the past few days the simmering consequences of injustice have once again exploded into view. Soon after I arrived, we were compelled by a mysterious and rapidly spreading disease to close the doors of our museums to the public. That disease itself has further revealed the effects of inequality, as the same communities riven by violence have suffered disproportionately the ravages of this new plague.

During the weeks and months our closure has lasted, we have reflected on how much more we need to do, once we reopen, to ensure that the treasures we hold—again, in public trust—are fully available to all. We know we can’t accomplish that on our own. So when we do reopen our doors, when we do come back together, I will join my colleagues in listening: to our visitors; to our neighbors; to our sister institutions; and to the staff and volunteers we draw from all parts of Pittsburgh and the surrounding region. We will seek and find new ways of acting on our conviction that Black Lives Matter. In light of this latest reminder of how urgently we need to change, we pledge that we will work together to model equity and inclusion within our museums, to reach out to neighborhoods across our region, and to remove those barriers that limit access to the life-changing beauty, inspiration, and knowledge that reside within our walls.

Sincerely,

 
Steven Knapp
President and CEO
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh