Black Arts & Cultural Center 40th Anniversary Celebration

Join us Saturday, October 17 at 6:00 PM at the Epic Center as we celebrate 40 years of Black excellence, creativity, culture, and community!

For 40 years, the Black Arts & Cultural Center has been a home for creativity, a platform for expression, and a place where Black stories, artists, and cultural traditions can be seen, heard, celebrated, and carried forward. As we reflect on the footprints that brought us to this moment, we honor the vision of our founders and their belief that Black excellence can and should thrive in the arts. Across four decades, we have watched visual art, performance, folk art, storytelling, music, and so much more flourish throughout Kalamazoo. Each generation has added another chapter to a legacy that continues to grow.

Black art is more than what hangs on a wall or takes center stage. It is family. It is history. It is identity. It is self-worth, joy, resistance, imagination, and love. It gives our voices room to be heard at their fullest and creates spaces where our stories can live freely. Through art, we tear down barriers, open doors to new possibilities, and create pathways for future generations to dream bigger. For 40 years, the Black Arts & Cultural Center has continued to reach for more, more space, more creativity, more excellence, more opportunity, and more vision. We are committed to building a legacy that future generations can step into, add to, and carry forward. And none of this would be possible without community. It is because of people like you, people who believe that art matters, that Black art matters, and that our stories deserve to be celebrated.