Among other accomplishments, Shakia Gullette Warren can claim the creation of a curiously named practice: gospel yoga.

Begun while she was the director of the African American History Initiative at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis, gospel yoga features live singers performing gospel music while attendees practice yoga. The historical society’s museum hosts gospel yoga every Martin Luther King Jr. Day, centered on the main tenets that King lived by.

“It’s a very popular program that still continues on today,” says Warren, who became the new executive director of the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia last May. As you might expect from someone who invented gospel yoga, Warren’s vision for Richmond’s museum expands beyond its physical walls.

“That is where we’re headed into the future, so you’ll see storytelling in a different way — storytelling within our programs and expanded through exhibitions that will not only be housed inside of the museum, but also in community spaces,” says Warren. “I want the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia to be the premiere space for telling the lived experience of African bodies in Virginia.”

With a background in exhibitions and community engagement work, Warren also conducted the foundational work to create the African American History Initiative at the Missouri Historical Society, served as a curator at the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis, Maryland, and, most recently, directed the Concord House Museum and Historic Site in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

“I am fully committed to telling under told stories of African American history,” Warren says. “I just feel so blessed and fortunate to lead the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia into this new phase and this new era for where we are taking Black history.”

For Black History Month, the museum has two new pop-up exhibitions. One is “Stolen Lives, Dreamed Lives” by French sculptor Sandrine Plante. The work features nine sculptures inspired by Plante’s dreams.

“The stories that she tells through these sculptures are of African Americans that have endured slavery, and the horrors of Jim Crow and oppression, and their exodus to freedom,” Warren explains.

Plante’s work was brought to the museum’s attention by actors Tim Reid and Daphne Maxwell Reid; the Reids are two sponsors of the exhibition. On Feb. 16, the museum will host a fireside chat between Plante and Tim Reid. The following day, Plante will host a documentary screening and an artist talk.

The other pop-up exhibit is “Visions of Progress: The Evolution of a Culture Through Emancipated Style,” highlighting the style and essence of Black Virginians. The exhibition is an expansion of one curated by the University of Virginia’s Special Collections Library. “Visions of Progress” features portraits commissioned by Black Virginians from the 1890s to the 1920s, focusing on their sense of identity instead of their roles as servants and laborers in a segregated society.

On Feb. 28, Siobhan Carter-David, associate professor of history at Southern Connecticut State University, will discuss “The New Black: Magazines and Fashion in the Post-Soul South” at the museum.

Asked about the fate of Richmond’s 13 Confederate monuments, which the museum is now in possession of, Warren says the museum is still deciding what to do. “We are still in the research phase,” she says. “We’re taking great care to be as thoughtful as possible in our approach, and we just truly want to recognize the historic relevance of the Confederate monuments and the impact that [they’ve] had on our community and throughout the nation.”

Warren says Black History Month is the perfect time to visit the museum.

“The Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia is open 365 days a year,” she says, “but there’s something extremely special about Black History Month and the celebration of Black life, Black arts, Black community, just all things Black, and I think it would be a wonderful opportunity for people to just come out and experience everything that we have to offer.”

For more information on the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia’s exhibitions and programming, visit blackhistorymuseum.org or call (804) 780-9093.