Category: grants

PROJECT SPOTLIGHT: EKAAMP

Bernetiae Reed, CDAT Project Documentarian and Oral Historian, reflects on her participation in the Eastern Kentucky Social Club (EKSC) Reunion and exhibit by Dr. Karida Brown of EKAAMP in St. Louis, Missouri.

Time was a blur as I traveled to St. Louis and back! Plans had been made. I would be taking selected archival items from the Eastern Kentucky African American Migration Project (EKAAMP) deposit collections on a road trip! I ask you, how best to see and experience America? How best to envision a different time? Nothing like it! So, off I went . . . I will spare you the intricacies of my journey, but highly recommend travelling behind trucks at night to safeguard against hitting a deer!

My goals on this journey, as Project Documentarian and Oral Historian for the Community-Driven Archives grant at the SHC, were to record events and assist with the installation of the exhibit. Two related events were taking place stemming from African American mining communities in Eastern Kentucky. The 49th Annual Eastern Kentucky Social Club gathering and the release/book signing for Dr. Karida Brown’s book, Gone Home: Race and Roots through Appalachia which included the launch of a travelling exhibit.

Figure 1: (l-r) Dr. Karida Brown, Hilton Hotel Staff, Richard Brown holding posters (Karida’s father) and Dwayne Baskin pulling program items from hotel storage

As soon as we settled into the downtown St. Louis hotel, Friday (August 31st), morning and into the Saturday afternoon, we were fanatically installing the exhibit. Tracy Murrell, an Atlanta-based artist and curator, was shepherding her vision of this exhibit to life. Tracy had been hired by Karida for the project. Use of wonderful shear wall hangings printed with photographic images transported us to the coal mining town of Lynch, Kentucky. Additionally, a throw-back-in-time couch took you to a typical home from the era.

Figure 2: Tracy Murrell and others work to install the exhibit

Many moments stand out for me. Karida opening the doors to the exhibit, Jacqueline Ratchford reacting to seeing her prom dress on display, Derek Akal talking about his current plans to become a miner, people interacting with artifacts in the collection, and so much more. People reminisced, touched, told stories, laughed, cried, and so much more . . . this was their family and a part of them! Needless to say, I videotaped only a small portion of everything that was happening. From hotel lobby . . . to each event venue . . . to brief walks in downtown St. Louis . . . to church service in the hotel . . . time flew by! Karida beamed as she signed her book. Everywhere people were greeting and hugging old friends. And a beautiful welling of emotions came in watching the young praise dancers who performed during the church service. I was captivated by their pantomime . . . brought to laughter and tears. And had a special sense of wonder for the youngest mime, not understanding how one so young could draw on life’s joys and pains so well. Finally, satisfied that the power to be moved again by this performance and the journey to St. Louis was possible with what had been recorded.

Figure 3: A high school letterman’s sweater and a pink prom dress from the EKAAMP archive set in front of images from Lynch Kentucky.

We included a clip of the praise dancers so you too could experience a piece of performance!

We post every week on different topics but if there is something you’d like to see, let us know either in the comments or email Claire our Community Outreach Coordinator: clairela@live.unc.edu. 

Follow us on Twitter    #AiaB #yourstory #ourhistory #communityarchives #EKAAMP #HBTSA #SHC #SAAACAM #memory #StLouis #CDAT #EKSC #GoneHome

What is a Community Archive?

Community archives and other community-centric history, heritage, and memory projects work to empower communities to tell, protect, and share their history on their terms. In 2017, the Southern Historical Collection at the Wilson Special Collections Library of the University Libraries was generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a grant to “form meaningful, mutually supportive partnerships that provide communities with the tools and resources to safeguard and represent their own histories.”  We argue that “Community archive models and community-driven archival practice address the ‘symbolic annihilation’[to quote Michelle Caswell] of historically marginalized groups in the historical record, and aim to create sustainable and accessible memory projects that address these archival absences.”[1]

So what does it mean? A whole host of complex, complicated moving parts that if done right could transform the historical record! And it wouldn’t just be the grant funded community driven archives team (CDAT) doing it, but rather a true collaboration between the CDAT and communities to keep communities in control of their narratives.

Communities can preserve their history in a myriad of ways. They can keep records in  brick and mortar buildings like the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum, or they can curate a digital archive like the South Asian American Digital Archive.[2]  Communal heritage or memory can be expressed through historic markers or murals, like the Portland Street Art Alliance’s “Keep on the Sunnyside Mural Project”[3] and through guided walking tours, such as those created by the Marian Cheek Jackson Center.[4] History and heritage can even be expressed through parades, commemorations, and community celebrations. In her article, “The records of memory, the archives of identity: Celebrations, texts and archival sensibilities” Jeannette A. Bastian notes,

the relationships between collective memory, records, community and identity as expressed through a particular celebration—a carnival— [is] located within the paradigm of a cultural archive. That paradigm theorizes that if an annual celebration can be considered as a longitudinal and complex cultural community expression, then it also can be seen dynamically as a living archive where the many events within the celebration constitute the numerous records comprising this expression.[5]

Community archival work can also be done in public libraries like the Queens Memory Project or with the support of universities like the SHC’s Community-Driven Archives project. We call our work community driven archiving because we take cues from community members on the best ways to support their memory work, we would not trample the long standing tradition of community owned and operated archives by co-opting their name.

We understand that working with communities to create archival, historical and heritage-based projects means grappling with complex issues of identity, ownership, and legacies of marginalization.  Community history has always been present; the community archives movement didn’t suddenly discover these histories.[6] We have a lot more to share about our perspective and experiences with community driven archival work, including its benefits and challenges for a large organization with a complex history like the University Libraries. With this post we are signaling that boosting community voices in all their intersectional, diverse, complicated and creative outputs is a top priority in the Southern Historical Collection these days.

This is a model we created to help us visualize the relationship between traditional archival users and community-history creators. By changing the emphasis on who is being considered essential to the archives story, you can completely change the priorities.

We post every week on different topics but if there is something you’d like to see, let us know either in the comments or email Claire our Community Outreach Coordinator: clairela@live.unc.edu. 

Follow us on Twitter    #AiaB #yourstory #ourhistory #communityarchives #EKAAMP #HBTSA #SHC #SAAACAM #memory

[1] “About: Community-Driven Archives Overview,” https://library.unc.edu/wilson/shc/community-driven-archives/about/

[2] South Asian American Digital Archive, “SAADA”, https://www.saada.org/

[3] Portland Street Art Alliance, “Keep on the Sunnyside Mural Project”, http://www.pdxstreetart.org/articles-all/sunnyside-mural-project

[4] Marian Cheeks Jackson Center “Soundwalk of Northside,” https://jacksoncenter.info/northside-stories/soundwalk-of-northside/

[5] Jeannette A. Bastian, “The records of memory, the archives of identity: Celebrations, texts and archival sensibilities,” Archival Science, (2012), 122.

[6] Yusef Omowale, “We Already Here,” Medium: Sustainable Future, September 3, 2018, https://medium.com/community-archives/we-already-are-52438b863e31.

NEH Challenge Grant Kick-Off!

You have probably seen a recent flurry of announcements and excitement about our National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant. This grant will go toward endowing our African American Collections and Outreach Archivist position, making it a permanent fixture of the Southern Historical Collection.

Receiving this grant is excellent news, and it means that we need the support of our patrons and partners more than ever. Every dollar of this Challenge Grant must be matched by three dollars that we raise ourselves.

Many people rely on the expertise and resources this position provides, from families tracing their ancestry to students developing research projects. Raising the money necessary to meet this Challenge Grant will insure that this position is secure, and that we can continue to preserve African American history in the South.

Here’s how you can be a part of something lasting

 

Photo courtesy of the Eastern Kentucky African American Migration Project

Now Available: Extensive Collection from Photographic Studio in Columbus, Mississippi

O.N. Pruitt (right) with his son Lambuth (far left) and probably Pruitt’s brother Jim (center). Both Lambuth and Jim also worked as photographers. Photograph circa 1925. The Otis Noel Pruitt and Calvin Shanks Photographic Collection #05463, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
O.N. Pruitt (right) with his son Lambuth (far left) and probably Pruitt’s brother Jim (center). Both Lambuth and Jim also worked as photographers. Photograph circa 1925. The Otis Noel Pruitt and Calvin Shanks Photographic Collection #05463, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Southern Historical Collection is pleased to announce that the Otis N. Pruitt and Calvin Shanks Photographic Collection has been processed and is now available for use by researchers.  The collection contains over 140,000 photographic negatives produced by two studio/commercial photographers, O.N. Pruitt and Calvin Shanks, in Columbus (Lowndes County), Mississippi, and the surrounding area from the late 1920s into the 1970s.  Images are studio portraits as well as images of events, scenes, and people taken outside the studio.  The collection also includes about 800 digital scans and about 200 prints made from these negatives.  Pruitt and Shanks were trusted photographers of the community and images in the collection document life in Columbus, Mississippi during the time in which they were active.

There are several series/subseries in the collection that have been processed, but have not yet been added to the finding aid and digital collection (Digital Southern Historical Collection).  Look for future posts announcing the additions.  Archival processing and preservation of the Otis N. Pruitt and Calvin Shanks Photographic Collection was made possible through a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources Group (Mellon Foundation).

Finding Aid:
http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/p/Pruitt,Otis_N.and_Calvin_Shanks.html

Materials in the Digital Sothern Historical Collection:
http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/search/collection/ead/searchterm/05463/field/descri/mode/exact/conn/and/cosuppress/

Now Available: Extensive Collection from Photographic Studio in Columbus, Mississippi

O.N. Pruitt (right) with his son Lambuth (far left) and probably Pruitt’s brother Jim (center). Both Lambuth and Jim also worked as photographers. Photograph circa 1925. The Otis Noel Pruitt and Calvin Shanks Photographic Collection #05463, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
O.N. Pruitt (right) with his son Lambuth (far left) and probably Pruitt’s brother Jim (center). Both Lambuth and Jim also worked as photographers. Photograph circa 1925. The Otis Noel Pruitt and Calvin Shanks Photographic Collection #05463, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Southern Historical Collection is pleased to announce that the Otis N. Pruitt and Calvin Shanks Photographic Collection has been processed and is now available for use by researchers.  The collection contains over 140,000 photographic negatives produced by two studio/commercial photographers, O.N. Pruitt and Calvin Shanks, in Columbus (Lowndes County), Mississippi, and the surrounding area from the late 1920s into the 1970s.  Images are studio portraits as well as images of events, scenes, and people taken outside the studio.  The collection also includes about 800 digital scans and about 200 prints made from these negatives.  Pruitt and Shanks were trusted photographers of the community and images in the collection document life in Columbus, Mississippi during the time in which they were active.

There are several series/subseries in the collection that have been processed, but have not yet been added to the finding aid and digital collection (Digital Southern Historical Collection).  Look for future posts announcing the additions.  Archival processing and preservation of the Otis N. Pruitt and Calvin Shanks Photographic Collection was made possible through a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources Group (Mellon Foundation).

Finding Aid:
http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/p/Pruitt,Otis_N.and_Calvin_Shanks.html

Materials in the Digital Sothern Historical Collection:
http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/search/collection/ead/searchterm/05463/field/descri/mode/exact/conn/and/cosuppress/

Now accepting applications for 2012 Visiting Scholars Grant Program

The Southern Historical Collection (SHC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is accepting applications for five visiting scholar awards in fall 2012:

2012 VISITING SCHOLARS GRANT PROGRAM

Joel Williamson Visiting Scholar Grant ($1200 award)
For projects examining African Americans or race relations in the American South

Guion Griffis Johnson Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining women in the American South

John Eugene and Barbara Hilton Cay Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining the literary culture or traditions of the American South

J. Carlyle Sitterson Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining the antebellum period in the American South

Parker-Dooley Visiting Scholar Grant ($1000 award)
For projects examining North Carolina’s history

Please visit our website to learn more about eligibility and application requirements…

SHC partners with Southern Jewish Historical Society, grant supports digitization of part of the Mordecai Family Papers

Earlier this year, the SHC received $1,000 from the Southern Jewish Historical Society‘s Lowenstein Archival Grant program to support the digitization of 39 writings (diaries, travel accounts, memoirs, prose and poetry) from the SHC’s Mordecai Family Papers. The SHC’s Mordecai Family Papers are heavily used on site by scholars, students, and members of the local community. We were honored to receive this support from the SJHS and we are pleased that we can now make these writings available to researchers online, via the Digital SHC.

We are also pleased to share the news that the SJHS will hold its Thirty-fifth Annual Conference in Chapel Hill this year, October 22-24, 2010. In honor of the SJHS conference, the SHC will mount an exhibit celebrating the history of Jews in the American South.  The exhibit will run October 22-December 22, 2010 (on the 4th floor of Wilson Library).