With less than a month left until
the end of The HistoryMakers Summer Immersion program, I have completed my
second special collection assignment: “An Evening with Quincy Jones” and am diligently
working to complete my third special collection assignment: “An Evening with Andrew Young”. Andrew Young was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) during
the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and was a supporter and friend of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. Young served as President of the National Council of Churches
USA and was also a Congressman representing Georgia’s 5th district
from 1973-1977. In addition, he served as the Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia from
1982 to 1990 and was also a United States Ambassador to the United Nations
during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Since
leaving political office, Young has either founded or served in a number of
organizations focused on public policy, political lobbying and international
relations, with a special concentration on Africa. I enjoyed watching The HistoryMakers’ DVD of Young’s interview program,
as I worked on processing special collections materials this week. The program incorporated
performers who acted out scenes from Young’s life. I particularly liked the vignettes
which depicted Young and his wife, Jean’s courtship and Young’s friendship with
Dr. King.
Monday,
July 30th: IMLS Fellows attended a meeting
led by digital archivist, Dan Johnson and executive director, Julieanna
Richardson-- where we and members of The HistoryMakers staff discussed various
aspects concerning the Special Collection Processing Project. We reviewed the
revised folder headings list and finding aid templates for special collections
and confirmed the total number of special collections completed to date. We also
talked about the next steps to follow special collections processing, namely, entering
special collections folder headings onto Excel spreadsheets; and preparing documents
for digitization by the company Vanguard Archives. During the meeting I volunteered
to complete
a training video on how to create EAD/EAC-CPF finding aids using Camtasia Studio 8. In preparation for the task, I watched tutorial videos, wrote a script consisting
of narration which will accompany the training video; and met with travel and
logistics coordinator, Marta Grabowski, who provided a demonstration on how to
use Camtasia to Chaitra Powell and myself.
Tuesday, July 31st: Fellows attended Dr. Cecilia Salvatore’s archives
seminar on Career Development/Networking and Exhibit Planning, where we
discussed assigned readings, as well as, ethical issues regarding the planning
of cultural exhibits and collections management and open source software for museums.
Furthermore, Dr. Salvatore allowed us to share our ideas about potential session
proposals for next year’s SAA meeting in New Orleans. She and the other fellows
also suggested archival groups we could join for the purposes of professional
development and networking, i.e., The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC), American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) and
Society for American Archivist (SAA) Roundtables.
Wednesday,
August 1st: The topics of this week's African American history
lecture with Dr. Christopher Reed, were African Americans' struggle towards
equality from 1965-1980 and the federal governments' increased efforts to serve
its black American citizenry from the 1980s to the present. I got put into the hot seat at this
week’s lecture, after I attempted to express concern to Dr. Reed about historical
narratives which inadvertently obscure the social, political, and economic
advancements made by blacks by emphasizing their struggle over their success. Nonetheless,
I think it is important to maintain a balanced perspective of African American
history, because despite the setbacks incurred as the result of white
supremacy, institutionalized racism and victimization; numerous blacks continue
to overcome these obstacles and persevere in spite of them.
Thursday,
August 2nd: Fellows
attended an afternoon meeting with Julieanna Richardson, Daniel Johnson and the
Back to School (BTS) with The HistoryMakers team to discuss the upcoming SAA
meeting and fellows’ assigned schools for the BTS program.
Friday, August 3rd: Fellows went on a field trip to the National Archives at Chicago. We met with staff members: Douglas A. Bicknese, Regional Archives
Director and Kris Maldre, Educational Specialist. Mr. Bicknese gave us a video
and PowerPoint presentation, which provided an overview of the National Archive
at Chicago's purpose, institutional structure, holdings, services, affiliations
and records management procedures. Following the presentation, we toured
National Archive at Chicago’s archival facilities, i.e. stacks, offices, and
reading room and viewed an archival exhibit which included documents related to
Abraham Lincoln, Chicago’s Great Ferris Wheel of 1893, the Black Hand, and
Bobby Seale and the Chicago Seven incident. I very much enjoyed our tour
of the National Archives at Chicago's archival facilities—it has more than
85,000 cubic feet of historical records dating from 1800 to the 1990's,
including textual records and non-textual records.
This upcoming Wednesday, fellows will be
traveling to San Diego, California for the 76th Annual SAA Meeting, “Beyond Borders”. Participation in the meeting will give us the opportunity to network,
learn from, and share our interests with other archives
and records management professionals from across the nation and around the
world. I am looking forward to attending the panel, “Rules of Engagement: The
Politics and Pleasures of Living Archives”, which will feature 2011-2012 IMLS
Fellows, Aaisha Haykal (Avery Research Center), Aisha Johnson (Fisk
University), Brenda Tindal (Princeton University), Alyss Hardin (Mayme A.Clayton Library and Museum) and Georgette Mayo, Processing Archivist at the
Avery Research Center. Each panelist will explore the various aspects (and
nuances) of working with donors in order to appraise and process their
collections for posterity.
Ardra
Whitney
IMLS Fellow
Avery
Research Center for African American History and Culture
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