January 30th - February 3rd, 2012 @ Fisk Franklin Library

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH!!!



This year's national theme is black women, so, be sure to learn about or teach someone about many of the great black women of black woman in history. The theme I chose to deal with black women and civil rights from various eras; slavery to the Civil Rights Movement. I created a PowerPoint of ten prominent black women discussing their achievements, efforts, and importance to black history. This ppt is projected everyday for the month of February. I also have two displays of books about/authored by black women and their civil rights efforts during the respected times.

Another busy week! I am currently working on section II of the Smith Collection. It is large and needs strict attention to detail. I created the arrangement for the decades. I am going to treat them as though they are individual collections, similar to what I did for section I (Rosenwald). Sometimes the hard work it takes to process the collections is not thought of, so, I decided to document this journey with pictures as well. It is under the S.L. Smith tab. I will update it as I go. Time is flying by!

Aisha Johnson

Week Twenty-Two at the Maryland State Archives

Last week, I completed case studies of 6 slave holders, whose slaves fled in a mass escape of 28 people from Dorchester County. These are now on our website. I began working on case studies of emigrants to Liberia from the 5 counties that we’re studying under the U.S. Department of Education grant. A reporter from The Wave, a community newspaper in Los Angeles, interviewed me about the fellowship. The next few weeks are going to be extremely busy, so I’ve been preparing for some upcoming presentations. I had a good conversation with the deputy director of special collections about giving presentations to elementary school students. She gave me some great tips to help keep them engaged. 'Til next time.

Krystal

Week Twenty-One at Amistad

During week twenty-one, I lead a tour of Amistad’s processing department and gave a presentation about my current and future processing projects to the Atmospheric Science Librarians of Alaska. (Yes, Alaska). The group belongs to a larger international professional organization, The Atmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI), dedicated to communication and dissemination of information among libraries and educational institutions involved in atmospheric science research and scholarship. The director of the Center briefly described the layout of the processing area, and afterwards, I explained the importance of the value of archival materials by showing them a few documents from the O’Neal’s papers, particularly documents about the Free Southern Theater. They appeared intrigued and asked several questions about how to access the collections located at the Center after the papers are processed.

Felicia

Week 21 at the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

While processing some administrative records I came across a Sepia Magazine dated June 1974. As I leafed through the magazine to find the relevance to the institution, I found Dr. Mayme Agnew Clayton, featured in a 5 page spread! At the time that the article was written it focused on the Third World Bookstore. A bookstore she co-owned before she founded the Western States Black Research Center.

Years ago, the MCLM received a sizable collection, the Mervyn M. Dymally collection. Mervyn Dymally served in the Senate as well as the State Assembly of California. The items in this collection ranged from oral histories, photographs and clippings. The most interesting item I came across was Dymally’s resume, according to his resume we lived on the same street in California!

January 23 -27th, 2012 @ Fisk Franklin Library

Hello all!! Another busy, yet, exciting week! Here at the Franklin Library, I participated in a "Photo Preservation through Cold Storage" workshop. I learned a lot about the entire process and when it is important to use cold storage. It looks like my networking last week at the AUC workshop paid off. Karen, a freelance Archivist, came across his date of death in a finding aid for a collection at University of Virginia...of all places, right! The date of death is September 9, 1956, he was 81 years old. There is more details about this matter on my blog.

Also, I continued to work on the Black History Month program, which will be up for display on Wednesday, February 1, 2012. I will contact the PR department to post advertisements on Fisk's Facebook and Twitter pages for students and the local communities. The program will run all month long. Lastly, I was interviewed for an article in the Tennessee Tribune newspaper. This is a historically black newspaper, so, that's exciting. It should run soon. Busy busy busy bee, I am.

Good day all!!
Aisha Johnson

Week Twenty-One at the Maryland State Archives

Last week was relatively quiet. I continued working on writing biographies of Dorchester slave holders. My team and I attended a webinar for a local grant that we may be applying for. It’s great for me to get a sense of what is involved in writing a grant application without the pressure of having to write it myself. I’ve also been working on finding content and images for our Facebook page, which is launching in about two weeks. I’m also prepping for February, which is going to be quite a busy month. I have a lot of program/conference attendance scheduled and am also preparing for several outreach events planned for the next few weeks. 

Krystal

Weeks 16-20 at The Amistad Research Center

I continued to process series three of O’Neal’s papers, finding more historical treasures! Of note is one of O’Neal’s essays titled, “Motion in the Ocean – The Political Environment of the Free Southern Theater.” O’Neal penned an essay describing his stint in the southern student movement in 1962 and meeting Gilbert Moses for the first time in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963.  O’Neal’s essay expresses his preparations for a journey to New York City to learn the craft of theater, however, several encounters with SNCC members led O’Neal from Southern Illinois, to Southeast Missouri, to Atlanta, to Southeast Georgia, to the Mississippi Delta, to Central Southern Mississippi, and finally back to Jackson, Mississippi, where he met Gilbert Moses and co-founded the Free Southern Theater. He also noted how he felt politically responsible while remaining a true artist during the southern Civil Rights Movement...

Click here for more information.

Felicia