Pay + Racial Equity in Museums

The issue of pay and racial equity in the museum field is in the spotlight today, like never before. The publication of an anonymous spreadsheet reporting salaries at major museums, as well as the recent call from the Association of Art Museum Directors to eliminate unpaid internships, have advanced an industry-wide conversation about the glass ceiling that disproportionately affects women and people of color. As some museum professionals have begun taking matters into their own hands by electing to join unions and enforce workers’ rights, others are wondering how they can best empower themselves and each other to bring the topic to the forefront at their home institutions.

Together with Museum Hue, an organization focused on racial equity in the arts, this discussion at The Long Table encourages current and aspiring museum professionals to join us to discuss experiences, thoughts, and strategies in pushing forward the conversation about pay and racial equity in museums.

The Rubin Museum invites you to take a seat at the table. Throughout our Year of Power, we are hosting The Long Table, an open-source participatory project conceived by artist and activist Lois Weaver, which provides a forum for visitors and community groups to engage in a series of conversations on sharing power.

The Long Table is supported by Shelley and Donald Rubin.

About the hosts

Stephanie A. Johnson-Cunningham has over ten years experience in the arts. She has implemented inquiry-based learning methodologies at the New-York Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum, and African American Museum in Philadelphia. Stephanie has served as a museum educator for children and adult audiences as well as more didactic approaches at the tertiary level as a lecturer at the School of Visual Arts, City College of New York, and New Jersey City University. Teaching in varying styles to groups with diverse ages and backgrounds has informed her skills in program development, arts-in-education, and strategic alliance building to use the arts as a catalyst for social change. She has written about her work for Curator: The Museum Journal and the Center for the Future of Museums as well as headlined talks about her endeavors at the American Alliance of Museums and the Museum Next conferences. As Museum Hue’s co-founder and creative director, Stephanie works to propel the visibility of artists and cultural producers of color in the creative economy. She holds a bachelor’s degree in art and art history from Brooklyn College and a master’s degree in cultural heritage and preservation studies from Rutgers University.

Museum Hue is an arts platform for people of color. We craft a welcoming, creative environment that encourages exploration, investigation, collaboration, imagination, and creation in museums throughout major cities, countrysides, and everywhere in between. Our vast cultural experiences paint a larger portrait of our transnational, cosmopolitan community across the globe. We curate Hueseum tours and Huenity mixers that provide authentic participation in various forms of expression as well as disrupt the homogeneity of the mainstream art world. Museum Hue is recognized as a cultural movement and structural intervention within the creative ecosystem.