Explore Black social history within National Museums Liverpool's collections through this online exhibition featuring highlights from our waterfront museums.

We are starting to review how local Black histories are currently represented within these collections as part of the Sankofa project.

For the objects from the Museum of Liverpool and International Slavery Museum the links are clear, there is a focus on the lives of Black people.

The connections within Merseyside Maritime Museum’s collection are not quite as obvious. This is partly due to the way we collected objects in the past, with less attention paid to stories associated with objects and what they can reveal about the lives of individuals. Objects and archives in the Maritime collection do demonstrate strong links between West African and Liverpool communities. Many people settled in Liverpool because of these ties. Our upcoming exhibition Black Salt will explore the pioneering work of Black seafarers as well as the challenges they faced.