Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice
Exhibitions
Visit us in our renovated 19th century house, which includes a gallery exhibition space, the stunning glass wall art piece Rising to Freedom, and a Symbolic Slave Garden.
The Simmons Center is committed to supporting public history. We see public history as a means to share and make relevant the work of scholars to our community on and off campus through exhibitions, public programs, and educational resources. This public history work aims to share a more nuanced understanding of the past by connecting the public to historic images, documents, and contemporary art as well as the innovative work done by scholars to read history differently and conceptualize new ideas about the lives of enslaved peoples. In our new building there is a gallery space where we will host revolving exhibitions that cover a range of issues. This gallery is central to the mission of creating "a public curriculum."
For interest in bringing a student group to the Center, please email cssj_youthprograms@brown.edu.
Exhibition on view January 21 through February 20, 2026.
Curated by Canaan Estes, Taher Vahanvaty, and Katharina Galor, Innocent Knowledge gathers digital images of children’s drawings from fifteen communities across Israel, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The nearly four hundred drawings offer a rare and intimate glimpse into how young people experience a deeply fractured and unequal landscape.
Curated by Canaan Estes, Taher Vahanvaty, and Katharina Galor, Innocent Knowledge gathers digital images of children’s drawings from fifteen communities across Israel, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The nearly four hundred drawings offer a rare and intimate glimpse into how young people experience a deeply fractured and unequal landscape.
Exhibition on view May 23 through December 12, 2025
A glimpse into the living repository of over 150 oral histories that has been collected to tell the global story of how racial slavery and European colonialism were foundational planks of the making of the modern world.
A glimpse into the living repository of over 150 oral histories that has been collected to tell the global story of how racial slavery and European colonialism were foundational planks of the making of the modern world.
On view at Mystic Seaport Museum April 20, 2024, through January 19, 2026, "Entwined" is the culminating exhibition for the Reimagining New England Histories project centering maritime histories in Indigenous, African, and African-descended worldviews and experiences.
Learn about past exhibits and view the catalogs and brochures for the exhibitions.