Our Mandate
Manitoba has no permanent institution dedicated to Black Canadian history and culture. Canada tells many stories about itself, about settlers and pioneers, about the building of the prairies, about what it means to be from here. The story of Black Canadians in the prairies, of freed slaves who established communities here before Confederation, of Afro-Caribbean students who built Winnipeg's professional class in the 1940s, of railway workers who founded the first Black labour union in North America, is largely absent from those institutions.
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That absence is not accidental. And it has consequences. When children cannot see their history in cultural institutions, identity suffers. When communities cannot gather around shared memory, belonging breaks down. When a city does not preserve what its Black residents have built, it is making a choice. A choice about whose story matters, and whose does not.
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The BCEC is making a different choice. Not as an act of grievance, but as an act of love.
Our Three Pillars in Practice
Honour the Past
The BCEC has already begun the archiving work. In partnership with the University of Winnipeg Archives, we launched Archiving the Black Canadian Experience in February 2026, collecting photographs, documents, oral histories, and artifacts from Black Manitoba families whose stories have never been formally preserved. Every elder we record, every box of photographs we digitize, every family story we hold is an act of institutional justice. This work cannot wait.
Celebrate the Present
The BCEC did not wait for a building. In our first year alone, we presented to hundreds of visitors at Doors Open Winnipeg, hosted First Friday at the Manitoba Museum in partnership with Black History Manitoba, welcomed the Honourable Michaëlle Jean, produced a documentary, ran an Anti-Racism and Allyship Workshop, and launched the Fortune Building residency. The institution is already alive. It simply needs a home.
Build the Future
The BCEC's vision for the future is deliberate and phased. Mobile museum experiences and pop-up exhibitions build audience before walls are built. The Fortune Building residency in May 2026 is the public proof of concept. A permanent home will follow. The $10 million capital campaign funds the physical institution: a museum, a living archive, a community gathering space, and a cultural centre.