Our Mission
Preserving Black Heritage
BLACC (Black Liberation Archiving and Conservation Center) is a Twin Cities-based memory justice organization dedicated to preserving, activating, and ethically stewarding Black protest art, community archives, and cultural memory. We were founded in response to the 2020 uprising and have since preserved over 1,000 murals and protest artifacts while building local and regional frameworks for community-centered archiving.
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Develop a National Framework for ethical protest archiving rooted in Black liberation principles
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Host a BLACC Memory & Preservation Fellowship for emerging Black archivists, curators, conservators, and artists
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Create an Open Digital Archive of protest art and oral histories, guided by community consent
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Serve as a Consultant/Convener for other cities or orgs preserving Black protest materials
Our Objectives
Into The Future
Meet Our Team
Dedicated Professionals
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Leesa Kelly
Co-Founder
Leesa Kelly is an activist, writer, public speaker, and curator. Leesa is the Founder and Executive Director of Memorialize the Movement (MTM), a living archive located in Minneapolis dedicated to the preservation and activation of over 1,000 plywood murals that emerged following George Floyd’s murder and the Minneapolis uprising in 2020. Through her work with Memorialize the Movement, Leesa has spoken at over 20 conferences and universities, organized 11 large-scale exhibitions in the Twin Cities and New York, published a catalog of the murals titled Art and Artifact: Murals from the Minneapolis Uprising, and led workshops on cultivating BIPOC representation and visibility in the museum and conservation industry. She believes in dismantling oppressive systems and rebuilding new systems that work for ALL people.
In the winter of 2022, Leesa became a McWatt Fellow, where she worked to strengthen Black history research & community engagement with the Ramsey County Historical Society, Hennepin History Museum, Anoka County Historical Society, and the Dakota County Historical Society. Leesa is currently serving as a New Suns Fellow through the Black Collective foundation. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at the University of Minnesota in Heritage Studies and Public History.
Amira McLendon
Co-Founder
Amira McLendon is a visual artist and emerging curator from Apple Valley, Minnesota, currently based in Minneapolis. She holds a BA in Art from the University of Minnesota. Her artistic practice focuses on digital illustration and explores diverse storytelling from a curatorial lens. McLendon sees art and curation as mediums for calling upon social change and justice, using said work to unearth the untold stories and amplify the voices of people that have often been overlooked by traditional institutions and museums. Her work advocates for LGBTQ+ individuals, Black and Indigenous communities, and People of Color. McLendon is the Collections Manager for Memorialize The Movement, where she continues to blend her artistic visions with her commitment to preserving, honoring, and uplifting forgotten and undervalued communities and narratives.
She was a Archiving the Black Web fellow through their Web Archiving (WARC) program where she attained skills to learn how to archive materials on the internet. In the Fall of 2027 she plans to begin a program in Library Science (MLIS).