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Two days before The Kinsey African American Art & History Collection exhibit opened at Tacoma Art Museum, Shirley Kinsey, a philanthropist and collector, gave the bronze bust of Frederick Douglass a pat on the shoulder like the famed abolitionist was an old friend. Before the Los Angeles-based Kinsey family turned their private art and history collection into a world-traveling exhibition, the sculpture of Douglass used to sit at their dining room table. 

“We’d say we were having dinner with Frederick Douglass,” Shirley Kinsey said with a laugh. 

The Kinsey Collection features African American art and historical artifacts from 1595 to the present collected by the Kinsey family and shared with the goal of “filling in the blanks” where Black American experiences are left out of American history. 

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