Nantucket's Museum of African American History centres on the African Meeting House, built in the 1820s and one of the most important surviving Black community buildings in New England. It served as a church, school, meeting hall, and political space for the island's African American residents.
The site adds a necessary layer to Nantucket's polished whaling-town image. Free Black sailors, abolitionists, educators, and families were part of the island's prosperity and civic life, and the museum tells that story in the place where much of it happened.