One of Super Bowl’s hidden gems
When Khalil Kinsey saw his family’s private African American Art & History Collection on public display at SoFi Stadium on the first day of Black History Month, he knew it had the potential to open hearts and minds by enlightening and ultimately inspiring change.
The award-winning gallery is billed as the historical representation of black contribution and achievement in America, with the earliest piece in the collection dating to 1595.
“So much of our history is still ongoing,” Kinsey said. “It is important for us to understand that’s true in everyone’s life.
“What we are saying when it comes to the African American story is something that should be illuminated more. It’s something that should burst into human and American consciousness because it is that important and that powerful and that beautiful.”
Kinsey acknowledges much progress has been made but believes there’s more to be made. He believes understanding from various viewpoints will equip society to move forward in the future.
Meanwhile, with more than 70 works of art and historical documents in the exhibition, Kinsey, who is from Los Angeles, said it is hard to choose favorites because he believes every piece is important and significant.
Whether it’s a 19thcentury portrait bust of a slave boy or poet Phillis Wheatley’s 1773 first edition book, the curated experience is a journey through Black History.
The Kinsey African American Art and History Collection highlights the little-known fact that despite being enslaved in the Americas as a child from West Africa in the 1760s, Wheatley became the African American author of a published book of poetry.
“12 to 14 million Africans
stolen from Africa permeated the whole western hemisphere but only 400,000 came to what became the United States / North America.
“When you think about everything from Patagonia
(in South America), all the way up to North America, there’s a huge black presence,” Kinsey continued.
The collection, which also highlights the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction,
the Civil Rights era and the modern-day African American experience, opens for general admission with onehour, self-guided tours on Feb. 23 and will be on display through April.
However, the collection will be available for a sneak peek at Super Bowl LVI to ticket-holders on the suite level today at SoFi Stadium.
“It really is going to open up a lot of perspectives and a lot of views about African Americans in this country,” said Jason Witt, the Director of Community Engagement at SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park. “When we talk about the community partnerships that we want to build, they have to be authentic.”
Meanwhile, Kinsey said his family’s love affair with art began more than 50 years ago with his parents Bernard and Shirley Kinsey and their appreciation for culture and history.
“Some things come from auction, some things come to us through donation but mostly they come from us searching them out through private collections,” Kinsey shared.
Also in the collection is a signed first-edition W.E.B. Du Bois book called “The Souls of Black Folk,” which was published in 1903. Kinsey said the manuscript remains relevant more than 100 years after it was written because it highlights race and ethnicity.
“We have a humble goal as far as people coming through this exhibition or any of our exhibitions and leaving saying ‘I didn’t know that,’” Kinsey revealed.
“We always speak to a process called, learn, use teach. You learn something, you use it in your own life and then you teach others and that’s the simple goal that we want from here that people leave expanded, a little bit more enriched and that it may prompt them to do more research and maybe even collection some of this on their own.”