PHOTOS | MoAD Marks 20th Anniversary with 2025 Afropolitan Ball, Raises Over $1 Million

Event: MoAD Afropolitan Ball 2025
Date: October 4, 2025
Location: San Francisco Ferry Building
Photos: Drew Altizer, Mahelly Ferreira and Jessica Monroy for Drew Altizer Photography

Celebrating its 20th anniversary year, the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) held its 2025 Afropolitan Ball at the San Francisco Ferry Building on the evening of October 4, 2025, raising record sums for the museum, its programs, and its global mission. In total, over $1 million was raised at the event, in addition to further grants and support announced from the museum’s patrons and affiliate organizations. Guests from the fields of art, entertainment, fashion, and philanthropy came together at the black tie-affair, forming the capstone event of the second annual Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week. Highlights from the seated program included unique culinary offerings by Foxtail Catering & Events, and special remarks honoring the late Belva Davis, the museum’s first board president who played a critical role in founding MoAD in 2005. The evening concluded with dancing and a genre-spanning set from DJ Novena Carmel.
​
​During the special evening, initial remarks were provided by Board Chair Eric McDonnell, who hosted the event and spoke about the museum’s accomplishments across the past two decades. Event chair Peggy Woodford Forbes reflected on Davis’s long-time involvement as a MoAD board member, acknowledging the museum’s staff and board from its early days who laid the foundations for its future success.

Executive Director and CEO Monetta White – in a custom outfit designed by Brandin Vaughn – provided further remarks during dinner, sharing MoAD’s new mission to place the African Diaspora at the center of the contemporary art conversation.

Notable attendees…
The 2025 Afropolitan Ball featured a variety of notable attendees and guests from art, fashion, entertainment, and philanthropy. In attendance was MoAD leadership including Executive Director and CEO Monetta White, Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Public Programs Key Jo Lee, Board Chair Eric McDonnell, Board Vice Chair and Afropolitan Ball Event Chair Peggy Woodford Forbes; notable figures including San Francisco Director of Cultural Affairs Ralph Remington; Willie L. Brown Jr., Irwin Federman, China Forbes, Maya Forbes, George McCalman, Joy Ofodu, and Brandin Vaughn; artists, institutional and gallery figures including Zully Adler, Francesco Dama, Cheryl Derricotte, Ashara Ekundayo, Mary Graham, Marta Thoma Hall, Mildred Howard, David C. Howse, Ayana V. Jackson, Yasmin Lambie-Simpson, Gustavo Nazareno, Mikael Owunna, Ramekon O’Arwisters, Jeremy Patricia Stone and Lava Thomas; Fmr KGO ABC7 News Anchor Carolyn Tyler.

Related
• 10.7.25 | PHOTOS: Nexus (MoAD) Global Groove Remix, Renewed for a New Generation

More on MoAD…
• 10.6.25 | The Museum of the African Diaspora is back — and aiming for the cosmos – SF Chronicle
• 10.2.25 | MoAD Reopens With Its Imagination ‘Unbound’ – KQED
• 9.30.25 | Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week returns as MoAD marks 20th anniversary – SF Chronicle
• 9.29.25 | MoAD Announces Slate of New Fall Programs, Timed to Museum’s 20th Anniversary, Nexus Week, and Annual Afropolitan Ball – MoAD