Amanda J. Carter: Week 8 (July 23-27, 2012) @ the HistoryMakers

Bronzeville

Lots of excited this week!  We began with a Chicago Black History Tour bus ride of the Southside and Bronzeville led by genealogist Tony Burroughs.  He was very informative as we visited locations ranging from Wabash Avenue YMCA to the first office building of the Chicago Defender with stops by the homes of those such as Louis Armstrong and Gwendolyn Brooks along the way.  I love tours, site visits, and field trips, so this was a great experience. 

On Tuesday, Dr. Cecilia Salvatore helped us to better understand donor relations and outreach by role-playing scenarios where we try to convince a prospective donor to leave his or her collection with our host repository.  For me, the most difficult aspect of donor relations would be the occasional need to ask the donors for financial support along with their collection of materials.  Since we are already requesting something so personally valuable, it seems like it could be a bit presumptive, or at the least awkward, to ask for a financial contribution, as well.  However, I do see the need to move beyond that trepidation because it is imperative to be able to supply appropriate housing conditions for the materials so that the collection can be preserved for as long as possible.  

After our archival discussion, we attended Ardra Whitney’s participation plan presentation.  I did not know the history of the Avery Research Center, so I found that interesting.  We then went into a long meeting with Julieanna Richardson about the expectations and standards to which we Fellows are being held.  Finally, at the end of the day we discovered that we had a group presentation the next day so the IMLS Fellows came together and developed a powerpoint presentation that reviewed our progress over the last two months.  Wednesday was extremely busy and exciting since we had Alex’s entertaining and informative participation plan presentation followed by Dr. Christopher Reed’s African American History lecture on World War II and the Civil Rights Movement followed by the group presentation to the Board of Directors at The HistoryMakers. 

Friday presented another wonderful field trip to Columbia College Center for Black Music Research.  I really appreciate the archivists’ frank discussion of the recent dangers of budget-cuts which is an unfortunate yet prevalent issue in academic archives in this day and age.  Sharing their backgrounds and the history of the CBMR was fascinating, as well.  I really admire these women and their efforts to sustain such an imperative archive of materials.  The collections they hold are so valuable for any research studying music or even spoken word.  They even had a redacted copy of Paul Robeson’s FBI record which demonstrates the depth and breathe of their collections.  How often we forget that archives can contain materials far and beyond what the imagination considers. 

Just a few of the interesting artifacts at the Center for Black Music Research.

In between the tours, meetings, lectures, discussions, and impromptu meetings (i.e. all day Thursday and a few hours each of the other days), Cynthia and I continued to work on our special collections.  Early Monday I was able to finish An Evening With Colin Powell.  We easily moved on to An Evening With Della Reese, but her collection proved quite expansive and included other records pertaining to Atlanta, where the event was held, but not necessarily to the event itself.  To distinguish the event among many papers of hopeful events and a Coca-Cola Luncheon proved extremely difficult and time-consuming.  However, we finished it by the end of the week and prepared some of the extraneous materials for a Coca-Cola Luncheon collection. 

Week 8 was a very exciting week filled with tours, field trips, meetings, and presentations while special collections work seemed to fill in the gaps.  On Saturday, a few of the Fellows and one of the teachers from the NEH summer program met up at the Southside Community Arts Center to watch IMLS Fellow Skyla Hearn interview Barbara Jones-Hogu during the last session of Art of a Community Speaks Across Generations.  Skyla did a fabulous job and I really enjoyed being a part of that experience.  Chaitra, Cynthia, and I then went to Ghanafest 2012 at George Washington Park.  It was great fun!

Art of Community Speaks Across Generations at SCAC

Next week we will visit the Chicago branch of the National Archives and Records Administration.  I have visited the one in Washington, D.C., previously, so I look forward to the ability to compare and contrast.  The rest of the week will also have the normal lectures and a meeting about our SAA conference trip, but it appears that we will have much more time to work on our special collections and to complete my presentation.  I still have a few tweaks to my own participation plan presentation but at least I have been able to set my presentation date for August 16. 

Until next week…

Amanda J. Carter
Franklin Library, Fisk University
2012-2013 The HistoryMakers IMLS Fellow