Twenty-five painted drums put American stories across Detroit for the 250th

Twenty-five painted drum sculptures are on view across Detroit this summer, each one shaped like a West African talking drum and each carrying a story meant to be shared. The exhibition is called "The Stories of Us," and the drums are free to visit through July 22 at the Detroit Public Library's main branch, Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park, and the Joe Louis Greenway's Warren Gateway on the city's west side, with more around town.

The work comes from a national nonprofit of the same name, and the timing is deliberate. This year the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, and the project uses that anniversary to ask whose stories get told in the country's history. The drums were made by local and outside artists, and they reflect the experiences of a wide range of Americans, especially the people often left out of the mainstream retelling.

The talking drum is a fitting vessel for that. Across the African diaspora, drums have carried messages, marked occasions, and gathered communities for generations. Here the form holds painted scenes tied to themes like "ripples across generations," which traces the long reach of enslavement and oppression into the lives that followed, and the American dream, an ideal claimed by citizens and migrants alike.

Detroit artist Darius Baber painted one of the drums, installed near the riverfront, around his own journey. Another, a front-facing piece titled "Infinite Journey," comes from artist Alanis Forde. At each sculpture, a QR code tells you more about the artist who made it, and a speech-to-story platform lets you record and add a story of your own. The point is participation: the show is built to collect voices, not just display art.

The choice to bring it to Detroit fits the city. Detroit sits at the center of Black American cultural history, from the Great Migration to Motown to techno, a place where public art and public memory have long lived side by side. The Stories of Us has also staged exhibitions in Cleveland, New Orleans, and New York, and Detroit hosted an earlier version of the project in 2024.

For now the drums stand in libraries, parks, and along the greenway, free and open to anyone passing by. Stop, look, scan the code, and if you want, leave a story of your own.