Live Webinar: AASLH Conversations: Inclusivity During COVID-19, and Beyond

Marian Carpenter is Associate Director of Collections/Chief Registrar at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. She was formerly Curator of Collections Management for the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, as well as Collections Manager at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN. She received a B.A. in History and Afro-American Studies from Indiana University and a M.A. in American History with a concentration in African American History from the University of Cincinnati. Ms. Carpenter’s museum career started at the Indiana Historical Society where she was employed as an Assistant Archivist. Ms. Carpenter then accepted a dual position as Educator Programmer of the Story Avenue Storytelling Gallery and Curator of African American Materials at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. She was the Curator and Registrar at the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis, MD, and then Registrar at the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) located in Washington D.C. for which she traveled extensively around the country installing exhibitions. She is a Seminar for Historical Administration 2009 alumnus and past Captain for AASLH’s Tennessee State Leadership Team. Ms. Carpenter currently serves on the AASLH Council. She also was the former Chair of the AASLH Diversity and Inclusion Committee and now serves as Vice Chair.

Omar Eaton-Martínez (Interviewer), the 2020 AASLH Annual Meeting Program Chair, leads the Prince George’s County Parks & Recreation Historical Resources, which include historical house museums, an aviation museum, the Black History Program, and archaeological parks. In 2019, he was selected to be an American Alliance of Museums Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Senior Fellow. Eaton-Martínez is the national board chair for Museum Hue, an arts and humanities organization committed to the advancement of people of color in the field, and he has held a leading role on the steering committee for Museums and Race: Transformation and Justice, a movement to challenge institutional policies and systems that perpetuate oppressions in museums. He has also contributed to the Museum as Site for Social Action project, which seeks to align museums with more inclusive practices. Eaton-Martínez has worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where he managed the interns and fellows program, as well as at the National Park Service, the Office of the National Museum of the American Latino Commission, and NASA. He received a BA from the University of Maryland and is currently pursuing a PhD in American studies there. Eaton-Martínez served as an Exhibitions & Public Interpretation panelist at the Center in 2019.

Richard Josey is the Founder and Principal Consultant for Collective Journeys LLC, a consultation and contracting service for museums and historical organizations interested in building inclusive practices and interpretive narratives. Richard has spent over 20 years supporting the development of inclusive experiences at numerous museums and historical organizations, including the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Minnesota Historical Society, and George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Richard’s work and experience have evolved from historical interpretation to interpretive planning, program development, staff management and development, internal and external facilitation, training, strategy development, and community engagement. More recently, Richard’s work has incorporated diversity and inclusion and reconciliation techniques to further assist individuals and organizations in overcoming obstacles while answering one quintessential question: What kind of ancestor do you want to be?  Richard serves as a member of the American Association for State and Local History’s Council and as the Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. He also serves on the AASLH Task Force on the U.S. 250th and the History Relevance Executive Committee.