Rhode Island Black Heritage Fund

We are proud and honored at Rhode Island College to have the R.I. Black Heritage Society (RIBHS) collection here on campus. The four rooms filled with artifacts offers Rhode Island College students and the community a first-hand look at what life was like for people of African heritage in Rhode Island.

“The goal is for the Rhode Island community to come in and see what is here,” she said. “There are people in Rhode Island who have probably never seen Black Newport or who do not know the legacy of Native American and African American history in Southern Rhode Island.”

- RIC Assistant Professor Sherri Cummings who is both historian and director of community engagement for the RIBHS

The collection contains a plethora of artifacts ranging from clothing worn in the early 1900s to an 1895 edition of The Freeman – the first illustrated Black newspaper in the United States.