NOMMO’s Latest Framework: Defend The Legacy: Tools for Protecting Black History, Artists & Museums Toolkit
At a time when Black history is being contested, distorted, and, in many cases, actively erased from public institutions, NOMMO Cultural Strategies is launching Defend the Legacy, a living toolkit for safeguarding Black memory in museums, archives, classrooms, and community spaces.
Introduced in 2026, this toolkit arrives at a pivotal moment: as the nation prepares for the 250th anniversary of the United States and the centennial of Black History Month, we are being forced to reckon with whose stories are protected — and whose are made expendable. Defend the Legacy responds to this crisis by offering a practical, principled framework for those committed to preserving Black history as essential American history.
Who is this toolkit for?
Defend the Legacy is designed for:
Museum professionals and curators
Educators and students
Artists and cultural workers
Community organizers and archivists
Advocates for historical justice
Rather than offering abstract theory alone, the toolkit provides strategies, questions, and frameworks that help users challenge exclusionary narratives, strengthen public interpretation, and center Black experiences within the American story, not as a sidebar, but as foundational.
Why Defend the Legacy?
We live in an era in which history itself has become a battleground. Book bans, restrictive legislation, and institutional avoidance have created real threats to how Black life is remembered in public culture.
This toolkit refuses to narrow memory. It equips users to:
Interrogate power in storytelling
Protect community histories
Reimagine museums as spaces of accountability
Affirm Black creativity, resilience, and intellectual traditions
Defend the Legacy is not just about preservation; it is about transformation: how we remember, who gets to speak, and what we choose to carry forward.
Join us in this work
We invite educators, curators, artists, and advocates to engage with Defend the Legacy as both a resource and a call to action. Together, we can build a future where Black history is not defended out of necessity, but honored as central to the American narrative.
Explore the toolkit above and download it via the Frameworks tab above. Let’s protect what matters, and shape the history yet to come.
Witness and Repair: NOMMO’s Reflections on Greenwood and the Passing of Viola Fletcher
Photo: Gioncarlo Valentine for The Washington Post.
The passing of Viola Fletcher — the eldest known survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — marks a profound moment in our collective memory. Ms. Fletcher carried nearly a century of witness, offering the world an unyielding account of both the devastation she lived through and the justice denied to generations of survivors and descendants. Her transition reminds us that the work of truth-telling and repair remains urgent.
During a recent research trip, NOMMO visited the historic Greenwood District and toured Greenwood Rising, the site committed to preserving and interpreting the legacy of Black Wall Street. Standing on the sacred ground where brilliance, entrepreneurship, and community once flourished — and where racial violence attempted to extinguish it — brought renewed clarity to the stakes of our work.
Learning this history again in place underscores what the exhibitions at Greenwood Rising powerfully assert: the demands issued by 1921 are still with us. Repair is not symbolic; it is material, continuous, and anchored in accountability. The charge carried by Greenwood’s descendants, scholars, and culture-bearers mirrors a lineage of stewardship that NOMMO proudly aligns with.
Like Ms. Fletcher, NOMMO is dedicated to making sure that the memories of those who perished, survived, resisted, and rebuilt are not pushed to the edges. Their stories teach vital lessons about democracy, freedom, and the ongoing fight for justice in the United States.
In continuing these histories, NOMMO emphasizes that memory is active, serving as a practice of restoring lost or hidden stories. Our approach involves revisiting archives, land, and community testimonies to uncover what has been purposefully concealed. Greenwood highlights that the stories we carry demand guardianship, and that the cultural effort of truth-telling is deeply linked to ongoing struggles for justice, healing, and clear understanding of history. Through research, interpretation, and storytelling, we aim to present a more complete and truthful account of the past as a step toward building a fairer future.
As we celebrate Ms. Fletcher’s life and legacy, we also recognize the responsibility she leaves for us all: to preserve memory, confront erasure, and envision Black futures deserving of the ancestors who shaped this nation.