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91 DONEECA THURSTON Doneeca Thurston hears regularly from people who have lived in Lynn their whole lives but had no idea there has been a museum dedicated to the city's history and culture operating downtown since 1897. As the executive director of the Lynn Museum and Historical Society, Thurston's mission is to change that dynamic by making the institution a more engaging place that reflects the rich diversity of the city. "We are fortunate to have so many different kinds of people in Lynn," she says. "We want to do more to capture that history." LEADERSHIP IN LYNN Thurston took on her current leadership position in 2019, becoming the first person of color to head up the organization even as Lynn has long been a very multicultural community. But Thurston's involvement with the museum began years earlier. She worked as a summer volunteer in 2010 when she was home on break from Bucknell University, where she studied history. When she started graduate school at Northeastern University, she returned to the Lynn Museum as an intern, later moving into part-time work as a programs assistant. After completing her master's degree in public history, Thurston moved on to a position at the Peabody Essex Museum. Five years later, however, when the Lynn Museum and Historical Society was looking for new leadership, she was eager to return to the organization where her museum career began. "It's my dream job," she says. "This place has a special connection for me." CREATING COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS Since taking the position, she's forged ahead with plans to engage and connect with community members, even those who have in the past felt excluded from the worlds of museums and art. Throughout her education and career, Thurston has often found herself the only Black woman in certain spaces, so she wants to make sure the Lynn Museum is not a place where that will happen to other people. "Galleries and museums are traditionally white spaces," she says, "but they should be for everyone." The museum has been doing more to include Lynn's Black history in its exhibits. Earlier this year, for example, for "Untold Stories: A History of Black People in Lynn," the museum team worked with community members to collect artifacts, documents, and oral histories to complement items in the museum's collection and tell the story of Black life in Lynn through the years. Another recent exhibit examined Khmer identity, culture, and voices, a nod to the city's Cambodian population. LONG-TERM PLANS And thinking of the long term, Thurston is also encouraging the museum to engage in some introspection, to consider what aspects of Lynn the collections should speak to, whose perspective should be included, and how that representation can be achieved. There's even an exhibit dedicated to that concept. Collecting For: The Artifacts of Lynn asks visitors to contemplate how museums make choices about their collections and displays, and how these choices can help preserve and shape history. The ongoing engagement, assessment, and evolution are all part of Thurston's mission for the museum—now and into the future. "We know that the Lynn community has continued to grow and evolve, because history is happening every day," she says. "Hopefully, we'll be here for another 125 years to come." PHOTOGRAPH BY JOEL BENJAMIN HAIR AND MAKEUP BY ALICIA DANE/ENNIS, INC.