The August Wilson Center for African American Culture preserves, presents and interprets the art, culture, and history of African Americans in Western Pennsylvania and people of African descent throughout the world. The Center realizes its mission with an engaging schedule of visual and performing arts programs as well as educational and public programs.
We see our world as a mosaic of individuals, each contributing uniquely to our collective humanity, not as a melting pot where our individuality is lost in the commonality of the human experience.
We celebrate our African American culture, based in the aesthetic expressions of the African diaspora, as an interdisciplinary exploration where concepts of art, community, politics, race and class transcend the traditional disciplines of visual and performing arts and coalesce into modes of expression that animate every part of humanity - physical, intellectual, environmental and spiritual.
The August Wilson Center for African American Culture demonstrates how culture, in its broadest sense, can be the most powerful factor contributing to our ability to understand ourselves, while building a path towards global understanding and peace in a troubled world. From this core of understanding, our patrons gain new appreciation for the remarkable African Americans who were born and nurtured in our region, as well as the shared experiences of communities and cultures of all races, creed and national origins worldwide. On these principles, we continue to build the Center as a welcoming, yet provocative, destination for all audiences, regardless of our perceived differences.