NEW YORK – The Stavros Niarchos Foundation has contributed a grant of $2 million and Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos has given a $1 million donation to the National African American History and Culture Museum in Washington in honor of the civil and human rights work of Archbishop Iakovos, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America from 1959-1996.
The Museum, currently under construction, is expected to open in 2016, and aspires to become a landmark that will present African-American history.
In the middle of last month the museum featured a high-tech projection of images on its outside walls with the title “Commemorate and Celebrate Freedom,” featuring the period from the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery in 1865, to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The images featured Archbishop Iakovos with Martin Luther King Jr. The Washington Post published a first-page photograph of that moment in the projection on Nov. 16.
The Greek Orthodox Church in America and His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios continue the longstanding legacy of Archbishop Iakovos to fight against racism and to defend human rights.
