World Beat Cultural Center

The World Beat Cultural Center will strengthen community engagement, expand access to archival data, and preserve recordings of the cultural traditions and dialects of maroon societies that provided sanctuary for Black Seminoles and Mascogos who fled to Mexico for their freedom. WBCC will develop a modular exhibition of the Underground Railroad South that centers the experience of Black Seminole, Gullah Geechee, Mascogos, and maroon societies. The project will support museum staff and paid undergraduate and graduate interns in gathering archival data through multigenerational interviews that will document cultural traditions and linguistic variations. Through these community-based research activities and the resulting exhibition, the WBCC intends to educate, enrich, and empower museum visitors as well as the descendants of each group while archiving and preserving linguistic and cultural data.