Ardra Whitney: Week 4 @ Avery Research Center

Monday, September 24^th: In the afternoon, I visited Phoebe Williams at Trident Technical College’s (TTC) Student Success Center and worked with her to scan images from C.A. Brown High School’s yearbooks and newspapers for the Eastside Day archival display. Copies of C.A. Brown High’s newspaper, The Pioneer came directly from Avery Research Center’s archival holdings, while many of the school yearbooks were donated to TTC by former C.A. Brown High band teacher, George Kenny. With Mr. Kenny at the high school, its 1970 musical production of “Hello Dolly was the first to sell every seat at Charleston’s Gaillard Auditorium for three performances”. What’s more, I was able to scan images of students’ performances in the musical that were featured in the yearbook and newspaper from that year.  

Tuesday, September 25^th: Throughout the day I continued working on the W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers. In the morning I met briefly with Manager of Archival Services, Aaron Spelbring to address questions concerning processing the collection and preparing a finding aid. I also continued evaluating video oral history interview for Debra Lee, Chairman and CEO of Black Entertainment Television (BET).

Wednesday, September 26^th: At 10 A.M., I participated in a conference call regarding the 3^rd Annual Back To School With The HistoryMakers (BTS) program. In addition, I corresponded with BTS coordinators and participants, via e-mail, regarding the program’s schedule for Friday, September 28^th at Springfield Elementary School and prepared opening remarks for presenter introductions. Additionally, Reference Librarian, Deborah Wright stopped by my desk during the day to talk about working together on creating a YouTube channel for Avery Research Center.

Thursday, September 27^th and Friday, September 28^th: On Thursday at 12 noon, I attended an Avery staff meeting for a post Black Power Conference debriefing and discussion of upcoming events taking place at the Center. I drafted an EAD finding aid for the W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers using NoteTab and completed Ms. Mayo’s suggested monthly reading: “Archivists, Meditation and Constructs of Social Memory” by Francis X. Blouin, Jr. The article explored “the authority of archival documentation” as the basis for public knowledge about the past and “the role of archivist as mediator between notions of historical truth and varied expressions of the past…”. On Friday, I was unable to attend the BTS program at Springfield Elementary with guest speakers, Dr. J. Herman Blake and the Honorable Lucille Whipper, due to illness. However, I corresponded with Mr. Spelbring about collecting images and video from the day’s events, so that I could prepare a post on Avery’s blog and/or Facebook page about the program. To view these images, click on the following link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Avery-Research-Center-for-African-American-History-and-Culture/122353217454