History of the Museum
Starting as a traveling exhibit in 2015, the Museum of the Palestinian People visited over 50 locations before finding a permanent home in the heart of Washington, D.C. On June 15th, 2019, we opened our doors, becoming the first Palestinian museum in the nation’s capital dedicated to telling the stories of the people of Palestine. Through contributions from around the world, we exhibit Palestinian artwork, historical artifacts, and cultural documentation.
We hail from an ancient land with over 4,000 years of history, enriched by the rise and fall of empires. This rich heritage is now celebrated and preserved at the Museum of the Palestinian People, where we explore and showcase Palestinian history, arts, and culture.
Our Mission
The Museum of the Palestinian People (MPP) is dedicated to documenting, preserving and presenting the history, heritage and traditions of the Palestinian people to the public through exhibitions, educational programming, and cultural initiatives.
The three main areas of activity in MPP’s mission are:
Documenting and archiving our history, heritage, and culture—preserving the tangible, the intangible, and what has been erased.
Preserving and presenting our histories and traditions through exhibitions and public programming.
Serving as a trusted resource for education, engagement and cultural preservation.
Our Vision
Our vision is liberation; a world where people are not oppressed because of their ethnicity, religion, heritage or any other arbitrary division used to draw boundaries between us. A world where connection triumphs over division. We are here to show and teach the world what it means to be free.
We bring Palestine home
We seek to create pathways for Palestinians to connect to their cultural heritage—and for others to open their hearts to Palestinian stories. To bring Palestine home is to carry it into our hearts, as Palestinians, and into the hearts of all people. While the Palestinian people have long been denied a geographic homeland, we affirm that Palestine continues to live—within us, between us, and across generations.As the poet Mahmoud Darwish once wrote: “Every people have a country in which they live, except us Palestinians—we have a country that lives in us.” This is our promise: to the Palestinian people, and the world. The museum will be a home away from home, and we will bring Palestine home.
