Community Curation Buffalo Memorial Day Celebration

The Robert Frederick Smith Center for the Digitization and Curation of African American History will host a Memorial Day Celebration at the Mason O. Damon Auditorium, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, Central Library on Saturday, May 23rd from 2pm to 4pm.

This informative panel discussion will focus on the stories of Black military veterans in celebration of Memorial Day and Black history. Panelists will share their expertise on the experiences of Civil War and World War I from the perspectives of Black veterans, as well as providing insights about how these veterans connected commemoration of their military service to the fight for civil rights and exercising their right to vote.  In addition, presenters will explore the role of the Black press in communicating such narratives and the importance of Black press archives to conducting historical research.

Panelists: Brandon Nightingale, Senior Project Manager, Black Media Archives Digitization Project, Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University; Barbara A. Gannon, Professor of History and Coordinator of the University of Central Florida

Community Veterans History Project, and Adriane Lentz-Smith, Associate Professor, History and GSF, Duke University and Senior Fellow, Kenan Institute for Ethics

Free Tickets available at Memorial Day Celebration: Buffalo Community Curation 2026 — Smithsonian Institution