Black Arts and Heritage Organizations in Washington State
Published: June 4, 2020
Categories: Artists Supporting Artists | Racial Equity Framework | Resources
If you want to add to this growing list, please email Program Coordinator Anna Teiche.
Last updated: February 3, 2025
Acts on Stage
Acts On Stage is a non-profit theater organization with a dedicated mission to changing lives dramatically through the production of performances that elevate. Their vision is to be a driving force behind a new era renaissance in which creativity creates change!
Acts on Stage is committed to respecting the arts as method and equipping the artists as messengers who generate thought and action on matters of social justice and reform.
African-American Writers’ Alliance
The African-American Writers’ Alliance, a diverse and dynamic collective of Seattle-area writers of African descent, provides an informal and supportive forum for new and published writers
Afrolatino Festival
Presented by professional artists, attendees have a unique opportunity to explore and learn about Afro-Latino culture and history from some of its top performers.
ARTE NOIR
ARTE NOIR exists to uplift Black artists! ARTE NOIR is a gallery and retail gathering space, located in Seattle’s Central District, exploring the dynamic creativity that springs from African and African American culture. With a focus on people, ARTE NOIR is shining a light on the makers, thinkers, and doers who are, and have been, innovating in their fields; centering the soulfulness and power of Black art.
Arts Corps
Arts Corps is a nationally recognized youth arts education organization that works to address the race and income-based opportunity gap in access to arts education. Through participation in their arts integration, out-of-school arts, and teen leadership programs, youth experience the transformative power of creativity and gain a deepened belief in their own capacity to learn, take risks, persist and achieve.
Black Arts Legacies
Black Arts Legacies highlights the long-standing, vital and ongoing role of Black artists and arts organizations in Seattle, through a growing archive of video profiles, written accounts, portrait photography and audio stories. The project recognizes an intergenerational group of local musicians, dancers, visual artists, poets, performers, curators and architects whose creative expressions document the complexity of being a Black artist in Seattle.
Black Arts Love
Black Arts Love is an arts organization committed to uplifting black artists, honoring and celebrating the richness of black culture, and driving economic empowerment.
Black Night Market
The Black Night Market was launched in Tacoma WA on April 29, 2022. Creating an innovative market space for BIPOC Business Owners to showcase and sell their products, art or services.
Black Heritage Society
The Black Heritage Society of Washington State, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to the acquisition, preservation, and exhibition of materials relating to the history and culture of African-Americans in the State of Washington.
Buffalo Soldiers Museum
Tacoma’s Buffalo Soldiers Museum has served as a community resource encompassing a significan—and all too often overlooked—facet of American history. They offer a variety of educational events, children’s programs, opportunities, and resources to amplify this important history.
CD Forum
Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas elevates Black artists and communities by encouraging healing, joy, and radical expression through equitable access, supportive mentorship, and opportunities for sustainable creativity and non-monolithic representation in the arts.
Led by pioneering Black women, femmes, and nonbinary folks, CD Forum drive towards a future where intersectional identities shape every facet of the arts sector. Through exhibitions, performances, workshops, and more, they foster creativity, enrich cultural dialogue, and promote artistic and economic empowerment.
Creative Justice
Creative Justice builds community with youth most impacted by the school-to-prison-(to-deportation) pipeline. Participants and mentor artists work together to examine the root causes of incarceration, like systemic racism and other forms of oppression, creating art that articulates the power and potential of our communities.
Gansango
Gansango Music & Dance presents traditional and contemporary dance and music from West Africa – drawing on the stunning talent of multicultural dancers and musicians.
Hey, Black Seattle
Hey, Black Seattle is an important new community support for Black residents of King, Pierce, Kitsap, Snohomish, & Thurston counties in the state of Washington. They offer a variety of resources and community building events, including A multi-county resource directory of community organizations, businesses, events, jobs & other opportunities.
Jackson Street Music Program
The Jackson Street Music Program’s Youth Developmental Objectives have a strong focus on the communication and creative thinking skills we believe youth participants will need in the future for the Global Economy. Our program provides youth participants with an opportunity to experience great music but, we also address the needs and concerns of community investors regarding the productive capability of our youth in the future.
Key to Change
Key to Change inspires underserved youth through world-class music instruction and supports their development as self-aware leaders.
ADEFUA Cultural Education Workshop
ADEFUA Cultural Education Workshop offers a variety of programs, classes, events dedicated to sharing the rich traditions from West-African Cultures.
Kutt’N’Up Entertainment
Kutt‘N’Up is a dance family that consists of youth all over the greater Seattle area. Their mission is to succeed in all aspects of life including but not limited to grades, responsibility, and accountability.
LANGSTON
LANGSTON is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization, established in 2016 to lead programming within the historic Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. LANGSTON guides generative programs and community partnerships that center Black art, artists and audiences and honor the ongoing legacy of Seattle’s Black Central Area.
Martyr Sauce
Tariqa Waters opened Martyr Sauce, a gallery in Pioneer Square, in 2012, showcasing underrepresented artists.
Meaningful Movies Project
The Meaningful Movies Project is a non-profit organization that assists neighborhoods, groups and individuals organize, educate and advocate using the power of social justice documentary film and relevant conversation to build positive and meaningful community and a more just and peaceful world.
It is the organizing arm of the Meaningful Movies Network, a collective of autonomous neighborhood and community Meaningful Movies groups that have agreed to work together and support one another to meet these ends.
Movimiento AfroLatino Seattle
Movimiento Afrolatino Seattle is an an umbrella organization created by Afrolatino communities and artists that appreciate Afrolatino arts and culture coming together to ensure the sustainability of ongoing cultural and education arts activities focused on Afrolatinos and open to anyone who is interested in learning and preserving this rich cultural heritage.
Northwest African American Museum
NAAM’s mission is to spread knowledge, understanding, and enjoyment of the histories, arts, and cultures of people of African descent for the enrichment of all.
Northwest Tap Dance Connection
Northwest Tap Connection is a distinctive urban dance studio specializing in Rhythm Tap. The studio’s philosophy is that dance enriches the lives of the students, while developing self-discipline, instilling self-confidence, and encouraging achievement and goal setting.
Oni Arts Foundation
Oni Arts Collective is a cultural arts education company that provides creative arts experiences for youth and families using various genres of art through culture.
Onyx Fine Arts Collective
Onyx is organized by the voluntary efforts of a group of artists and supporters committed to celebrate and promote the visual artwork of artists of African descent.
PRICEarts
PRICEarts, a place to cultivate community and education in various fine and performing arts disciplines. We are a community with a conscious devoted to responding to the needs of those in the cities we dwell in.
Puckduction
Our mission is to support BIPOC and LBGTQ+ creators, with a focus on neo-burlesque, cabaret and film. We aim to educate the general public about these art forms while providing space and financial compensation for marginalized performing artists.
South Seattle Emerald
Founded as a platform that authentically depicts the dynamic voices, culture, arts, ideas, and businesses that fall within South Seattle’s borders, the Emerald is news as it was originally intended to be: not as business, nor as a forum for propaganda, but as a service to the community it chronicles.
Spectrum Dance Theater
Spectrum Dance Theater brings dance of the highest merit to a diverse audience composed of people from different social, cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.
Terrain
Located in Spokane WA, Terrain is a pioneering non-profit building community and economic opportunity for the artists, makers and culture creators of the Inland Northwest.
The Black Embodiments Studio
The Black Embodiments Studio is hybrid arts writing incubator and a public lecture series dedicated to expansive and dynamic investigations of blackness in contemporary art.
The Black Lens
The Black Lens is an independent community publication, based in Spokane, Washington, that is focused on the news, events, people, issues, and information of importance to the African American community.
The Hansberry Project
The Hansberry Project is rooted in the convictions that black artists should be at the center of the artistic process, that the community deserves excellence in its art, and that theatre’s fundamental function is to put people in relationship to one another.
The Mahogany Project
Realizing that there weren’t many opportunities in the Arts for African-American women, they decided to develop a project that would create more opportunities for them. The women of The Mahogany Project committed to collaborating in hopes of creating opportunities for local Seattle theatre artists.
Tacoma Urban Performing Arts Center
T.U.P.A.C.’s mission is to provide the youth of Tacoma, particularly Black and BIPOC youth in the historic Hilltop Community, with opportunities to achieve artistic excellence through culturally relevant pre-professional dance training, community events, and classes in the performing arts. Further, our mission is to provide students with mentoring by national and international artists, and intergenerational artists, and most importantly, whole person development and community give back.
Umoja Fest
Umoja Fest honors our rich heritage while recognizing our ability to make history. The festival and parade celebrates our collective ability to make ourselves, our families, community, city, state, nation and world a better place for our future generations.
Unified Outreach
Unified Outreach’s mission is to assist under-served, at-risk, disabled, and arts-starved youth with personal growth and character building using the Arts to break down racial, economic, and social barriers, to inspire creativity, to build confidence, and to promotion positive self-esteem.
Wa Na Wari
Wa Na Wari creates space for Black ownership, possibility, and belonging through art, historic preservation, and connection. We are a center for Black art and culture in Seattle’s historically redlined Central District neighborhood.
Wonder of Women International
Wonder of Women (WOW) creates sacred spaces for storytelling, healing through art, performances, and retreats for Black women and girls. They publish inspiring Black art tools and products to support Black women and girls find their voice through storytelling and sisterhood as well.
To learn more about our Racial Equity Framework, please click here.
