Skyla S. Hearn: Week X

Last week, May 17^th through May 20^th I had the time of my life. The excitement began Friday night. I took a flight from Chicago to Atlanta to spend the weekend with my younger sister-cousin, Tia, to celebrate her matriculation from graduate school. She earned a Master of Art in Education from (the HBCU) Clark Atlanta University. The weekend was monumental. President Obama spoke at the Morehouse graduation on Saturday. Taronda Spencer, the college historian and archivist at Spelman University died Sunday morning. Sunday morning into the early afternoon I attended the best Sunday service I have ever attended in my life. Monday morning, with the hot Georgia sun beaming on my head and body, I, along with hundreds of others cheered on as our loved ones graduated from Clark Atlanta University. Less momentously, the rapper Chief Keith was being arrested for nefarious behaviors, also somewhere in Atlanta, during my stay.

 

African American history/herstory seems to be weaved into the fabric of my daily life. I could successfully argue that African American history/herstory is all around us and takes place in every conversation---I’ve had over the last nine months with either Michael Flug or Beverly Cook, my supervisors at the Harsh Research Collection.

 

 

When I shared with Michael that I was visiting my cousin in Atlanta, he jokingly asked if she lived in “one of those” gated communities. A lot of information was unpacked from that statement. The conversation went on for minutes to reveal that my cousin does not live in a gated community that supports class separation amongst African Americans. I wasn’t surprised to learn about such communities but it didn’t occur to me to think of such communities in the hospitable South---or at least not in African American communities in the hospitable South.

 

After that conversation, he encouraged me to meet with his good friend Taronda Spencer, the college historian and archivist at Spelman. I thought it would be a great idea especially since my cousin is also a Spelman Sister, which would provide her the opportunity to meet another Spelman Sister, etc. Unfortunately, Taronda and I would never have the opportunity to meet. Another link in unmet events for the weekend include a visit to the Woodruff Library. I read that the Teenie Harris photograph exhibit was on display at the Woodruff so we drove there to learn the building was closed due to graduation.

 

During the professional development calls, which have taken place once a month throughout the fellowship, the fellows engage in conversation with archival professionals---various types of archivists, directors of archival repositories and so on. Our first call was with the wonderful women at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh who were, at the time, working on the Teenie Harris Photograph Collection. We later spoke with Andrea Jackson, of the Atlanta University Center---Woodruff Library is one of the libraries in Andrea’s consortium.

Patrons at the Teenie Harris Exhibit at the CMA in Pittsburgh

Sometimes conversations and interactions are like attributing intellectual control over an artificial collection, when it begins the ending is completely unknown…