Venue: August Wilson African American Cultural Center
Address: 980 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Town: Pittsburgh, US
Capacity: 472

The August Wilson African American Cultural Center is a U.S. nonprofit arts organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that presents performing and visual arts programs that celebrate the contributions of African Americans not only in Western Pennsylvania, but nationally and internationally. The August Wilson African American Cultural Center building is on Liberty Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh's Cultural District. It includes galleries, classrooms, a 500-seat theater, a gift shop, a cafe, and many multi-purpose spaces for visual and performing art. The museum opened in 2009. The August Wilson Center was part of a plan drawn up by Pittsburgh NAACP President Tim Stevens in 1996 in order to try to bring the National NAACP Convention to Pittsburgh. In the plan, there was a statement that urged the Mayor of Pittsburgh to provide financial backing for an African American Museum. Later in 1996, then-Mayor Tom Murphy charged two City Council Members, Sala Udin and Valerie McDonald with bringing stakeholders together to discuss the museum's future. Funding from various sources, including the URA, State of Pennsylvania, and The Heinz Endowments came together to begin construction of the center. The land on which the center sits was taken by eminent domain and sold to the museum for $1. The center celebrated its "topping off" ceremony on August 12, 2008, at 12:30 pm. Construction was completed shortly thereafter and the museum was open to the full public on September 17 and 19, 2009. The August Wilson Center was designed under the direction of Allison G. Williams, FAIA and members of her team from her San Francisco office of Perkins and Will. During the design of this project, AI merged with MBT Architecture and then was subsequently bought by Perkins+Will. The project design was completed in the San Francisco office of Perkins+Will. Team members included Greg Lehman, Sally Curtis, Stacie Velten. In February 2019, the August Wilson Center for African American Culture (the