NOTE: Applications submitted through Handshake will NOT be considered.
Hybrid Full-Time Internship
$850/week
June 1 – August 2, 2026
Desired Majors and Areas of Study: Museum Studies, Public History, History, African American or Africana Studies, Archival Studies, Library and Information Science, Education
This internship is housed within the Department of Education, working directly with the Audience Engagement team’s Save Our African American Treasures (SOAAT) program. The Education Department strives to empower audiences by making accessible American history and culture through an African American lens and by embracing equity as a core value. While the Audience Engagement Unit offers informal yet deeply impactful, in-person and digital experiences that encourage participation, inquiry, and real-time person-to-person exchange as part of the museum experience.
Audience Engagement also focuses on extending the museum’s reach beyond Washington, D.C., cultivating relationships with communities across the nation, and ensuring that the museum’s work reflects and honors local histories. SOAAT represents one of the museum’s earliest and most sustained community-based initiatives.
The internship focuses on organizing, documenting, and enhancing access to historical program materials created between 2008 and the present. Under staff mentorship, the intern will work with both physical and digital materials, including program files, photographs, planning documents, and outreach records.
This project preserves the institutional memory of one of the museum’s earliest public programs and supports future storytelling, evaluation, and scholarship. The project emphasizes learning foundational archival and documentation practices.
By the end of the internship, the intern will be able to:
- Describe the history and national impact of the Save Our African American Treasures program
- Apply basic archival principles to organize physical and digital materials
- Process and describe historical documents and photographs
- Analyze program documentation to identify themes of community engagement and preservation education
- Demonstrate transferable professional skills including organization, research, and communication
Duties Include (but are not limited to):
- Organize and inventory physical program documents
- Sort and label digital files and photographs
- Participate in regular mentorship check-ins
- Attend weekly Department of Education and Treasures meetings and programs.
- Assist in developing an organizational framework for archival materials
- Support updates to program mapping or tracking tools
- Contribute to a written summary reflecting on the program’s historical impact