Harlem’s Children’s Art Carnival (1969-present) was an outgrowth of MoMA’s annual event-based art education series of the same name that had been established by MoMA’s founding Education Director, Victor D'Amico, in 1942. In 1969, MoMA re-imagined the Carnival as a free outreach program in Harlem under the leadership of Betty Blayton-Taylor (1937-2016), an artist (known as Betty Blayton), educator, community activist, and co-founder of the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 1974, she established the Harlem iteration of the Carnival as an independent nonprofit organization at its current home at 62 Hamilton Terrace.

Blayton-Taylor’s vision for the Carnival harnessed the creative and political energy of the Black Arts Movement to provide children and youth with critical arts education in schools and community spaces, develop influential arts-based educational models such as Creative Reading through the Arts, and foster empowerment and career pathways in communities severely impacted by systemic injustice and limited resources.