 Hello, my name is Vicki Coleman. I am the Dean of Library Services at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. I'm also the Acting Chair of the 1890 Langerand Institutions and Tuskegee University Library Directors Association. On behalf of the Association and with regards to this program, we believe that libraries and archives can play an important role in supporting and advancing social justice. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hello, my name is Julie Garrison and I'm the Dean of Libraries at Western Michigan University and the current President of the Association of College and Research Libraries. ACRL is the largest division of the American Library Association with over 8,000 members in all ranks of academic and research libraries. ACRL is deeply committed to equity, diversity and inclusion and we look at every aspect of what we do through this lens. It is our goal that social justice lives in ACRL, in ALA, and in all academic and research libraries everywhere. Thank you for joining us for this important program. I'm Patty Wong, President of the American Library Association where equity, diversity, inclusion and social responsibility are two of our primary core values. At a time when libraries are experiencing an all-time high level of censorship of books and materials that speak to the lived experiences of LGBTQIA individuals and black and indigenous people of color, documentaries such as Hidden in Full View remind us of how important it is that we face our histories together. ALA commits to making access to our diverse viewpoints and stories readily available to all. Greetings, I am Marvin Delaney, President of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. ASALA, which is the pseudonym that we use for our organization, is the oldest organization in the country promoting the study of African American history. We are the founders of Black History Month. At the Historical Association, we also welcomed the opportunity to support films and programs that highlight the African American experience. Litching used to be a great American pastime. So it is important that we support short films, such as Hidden in Full View, in order to raise our consciousness and that of others, and to make sure that such tragedies never happen again. Thank you. Courtney Sharche, the President of the Society of American Archivists. SAA is pleased to be partnering with ALA, ACRL, ASALA, and the 1890 land grant institutions and Tuskegee University Library Deans Directors Association on the US Movement on Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation, and the creation of an archive of racial and cultural healing, or ARSH. Thank you. Hello, my name is Kay Matthew Dames, and I am the 61st President of the Association of Research Libraries. Welcome to this viewing of the film Hidden in Full View. The 7.5 minute film about the 1931 lynching of Matthew Williams in Maryland is particularly timely now that the United States Congress has passed federal anti-lynching legislation after more than 200 failed attempts. That bill is on its way to President Biden for his signature into law. ARAL supports the formation of a US Commission on Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation, and we look forward to partnering to advance the formation of an archive of racial and cultural healing. And thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. There are nearly 300 of you with us, which is just incredible. So thank you again for being with us. My name is Jack Dunzio, and I am a public historian based at George Mason University's John Mitchell Junior Program for History, Justice and Race. Just on the screen, hopefully currently on the screen, was a link to the documentary that we just viewed once again titled Hidden in Full View. If you're interested in, there we go, back up on the screen now. If you are interested in screening or renting the film, you can visit the link or if you're interested in learning more about the film, go ahead and visit that link, hiddeninfullviewseries.com. And as you all take some time to sit with and to really process the film that we just saw together, I want to begin by introducing our distinguished panelists for today. Who will be our guides as we think through together how to confront and reverse some of these problematic archival practices that have traditionally seen universities and institutions extracting from rather than deferring to and enriching black cultural institutions. Our panel for today brings together national leaders in the archival and library sciences, narrative change makers, as well as keepers of community records and oral traditions. I want to begin by introducing Dr Lopez Matthews. First of all, please join me in congratulating Dr Matthews for his well deserved appointment as the new district of Columbia State Archivist and public records administrator. Dr Matthews is actually joining us today from his brand new office so congratulations again Dr Matthews. Dr Matthews most recently served as the manager of the digital production center and digital production librarian for the Moreland spring on research center and the Howard University libraries. Dr Matthews earned a BA in history from Copham State University, a master's degree in public history from Howard University and also a PhD in US history from Howard University. He is the author of Howard University in the World Wars, men and women serving nation. Thank you again so much Dr Matthews for being with us. Our next panelist is Miss Alene Westbrooks, who has been vice provost for university libraries and university librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2017. She is also vice chair of the Association of Research Libraries Scholars and Scholarship Committee, and she is a member of the executive committee and governing board of the Triangle Research Libraries Network. Westbrooks has held library leadership positions at several institutions including University of Michigan University of Nebraska Lincoln and Cornell University. Miss Westbrooks is the co editor of two volumes on metadata and academic library management, and she holds a BA in linguistics and an MLIS from University of Pittsburgh. Now our principal panelists for today is Dr Charles Chavis, a scholar activist and the author behind the Silent Shore, the lynching of Matthew Williams and the politics of racism in the free state. We will be exploring the research methodology for Dr Chavis book in great detail today. And Dr Chavis is also the filmmaker behind what we just viewed hidden in full view. Hidden in full view as a companion to the Silent Shore. And it is the first in a series of upcoming documentary shorts again please visit the website and keep updated on on the latest episodes. Dr Chavis is the director of African and African American Studies. He's the founding director of the Johns junior program, and he's an assistant professor of history and conflict resolution at George Mason University. Dr Chavis is also national co chair for the United States truth racial healing and transformation movement, and he is the vice chair of the Maryland lynching truth and reconciliation commission. And finally, we are really thrilled and honored that machine shields is joining us today. Miss shield is the extraordinary president of the shipment foundation, which supports the Charles H chipman cultural center. As you all will learn in this program today the shipment center which was previously known as the john Wesley Methodist Episcopal church has long been a sanctuary for the black Georgetown community in Salisbury, Maryland. I should also note that Miss Shield is known widely by her community as the Queen of Salisbury, which is a title that she she might object to. I myself witnessed the way that people light up when they see her and the warmth and care that she brings to every interaction I think she is very deserving of that title. I also hope that Miss shields won't mind me mentioning that she was a long time Salisbury City Council woman, and she is now seeking to return to elected office on the Wicomoco County Council. If you are in the area of Wicomoco County on your folks in the area. Please consider exploring her candidacy and voting for her. And the last thing I will say about the shields, I think it's very safe to say that without her support and expertise that this research, and indeed this event would not have been possible so thank you very much again for joining us in the shields. I want to turn over now to my good friend and mentor Dr Charles Chavis and Dr Chavis I wanted to ask if you could maybe begin by taking us through your encounters with archival and institutional anti blackness as you were researching for your book the silent short. Thank you so much Jack and I want to thank all the panelists and all of our guests today I also want to thank people who are who weren't able to make it specifically I'm Dr Marcus Hunter who is the developer and of the arch archive for culture and racial healing. Also the my co filmmakers with crew films, who did an amazing job with the film, and also to a RL and all of the organizations represented here, it's indeed an honor. And as a doctoral student at Morgan State and writing this dissertation which would become a book and eventually a film series I had no clue about around regarding the impact that this work would have on the larger archival and library community so I'm indeed honored and thankful for this moment. I will briefly talk about your dangerous territory Jack you give a historian how many minutes I have five minutes to lay out the research, but you know, I think it's important, you know, being trained at Morgan State University by the amazing Dr. Newman ham was something that really informed the ways in which I dealt with an engaged with archives right in many ways in my book I talk about historians of the black freedom struggle, having to be salvaging experts. Because of the nature of archival institutions and if we think about systemic racism. We have to understand the ways in which racism and white supremacy manifests themselves within our systems specific and also, I mean those systems indeed are represented within how we chronicle preserved stories how we store materials right. There's a value system laid out in many ways it can be done so unknowingly but nonetheless it perpetuates and I experienced this firsthand in doing this research the research on Matthew Williams. In many ways as I mentioned, being a salvaging expert. When we think about racial terror lynching and documenting the narratives of racial terror throughout this country. We are thankful for the work of the black press. So we always in many ways begin there from the black president build our way out right, recognizing that predominantly white institutions historically. We're not concerned around preserving the lived experiences of black and brown people and so we look to the black press as a resource and that's exactly what I did in my work and from there I was able to glean and discover additional records regarding the state that were held in state archives and from there I went to the state archives searching for these records, and it took me about, I would say a week or week or two weeks to actually identify the records. And I laid this out in my book and talk about the frustration and being able to do that within the Afro American newspaper, black owned newspaper in Baltimore City. These are references made to reports from various interracial commissions. I sought out those reports in the state archives. And as I did that, I was astonished to discover the years in which the racial terror lynchings happened. Those boxes in the state archives were empty. I proceeded then to call down who has become an amazing friend of mine. Mr Chris Haley the nephew of Alex Haley. Trying to figure out what exactly is going on. And that's when Mr Haley also was confused as well. And from there, we eventually I discovered a number of records that were stored off site. And they were not processed and it was about four boxes of unprocessed materials that have been stored. And this these materials, the contents of these these boxes were really astonishing. They were actually firsthand contemporaneous eyewitness accounts from both black and white witnesses, as well as an accounts from undercover Pinkerton detective agent, who infiltrates the mob. And all of these records are housed within off site, and pretty much a moving box and they were thrown on top of each other. And they were housed in the records of the state's attorney, excuse me the attorney general, and the governor's papers as well were both combined. And as I thought about this, originally, you know, I thought about the neglect of this in terms of the institution. So, thought about the ways in which bureaucracy plays into the delays as I mentioned into receiving these workers, all these things kind of play out and so for me, you know that speaks to in many ways one of the things with lynching and racial terror lynching is lynching there's a lie that I sought to dispel within my research, specifically this lie that lynchings took place at the hands of persons unknown. And, of course, most, you know people in the black community did never ascribe to that that lie or never believe it and we know that's not the case, as we know about the structures of lynching. And so, in many ways we don't have the written record materials empirical data or things that are needed to make the case. We have the oral tradition or oral history that is utilized to salvage these stories. However, what I didn't want to do specifically in doing even doing the research around the lynching around the lynching of Matthew Williamson around the community of Georgetown I didn't want to re traumatize members of the community. In the in the hopes that they would be believed for that their stories would be believed, we have to really be real and confront and deal with the ways in which empirical excuse me, the ways in which forensic data and forensic information is extremely important and it informs the oral history and the oral stories that black communities have laid out and I was indeed very surprised to see these records still here to be quite honest, after 90 years these boxes were hidden away. And I'm going to turn it over to Miss Cheney in a few seconds to talk about one of the figures who shows up in this story by the name of Dr. A. D. Brown he he serves as one of the primary witnesses in the investigation. In the papers that I find and he is a black physician in Salisbury, who drives through the mob. And he plays a prominent role in the Georgetown community. But if it had not been for the discovery of these records that were stored off site in the Maryland State Archives for 90 years, his story and the story of other black leaders, including Franklin Pinkett, who is the great grandfather of Jada Pinkett Smith. He was actually also someone who shows up in this book and in this these materials as individuals who spoke truth to power and they testified before all white jury and told who the members of the mob were. If it had not been for again this discovery, we would have never known of their heroism. And with that, I'll turn it over to Miss Cheney could kind of talk about some of this local history, but also to talk more about the importance of some of these figures whose stories are forgotten. Miss Cheney. Can you hear me. Yes. Okay, I don't know if you can see me or not. I don't know anything about this technical stuff. Now shut off the women start video women is it start video. Yes, yes, ma'am. Okay. Okay. Um, first of all, I'm happy to be part of this panelist history has been very important to me I loved history in high school. And my family is one of the oldest black families in city of Salisbury. And I was the first African American to pick it. My cousin, several generations removed was Harold T. Pinkett, Harold D. Pinkett, he was an archivist in the National Archives of the United States, he was the first African American archivist. And so history was important to him. I love the Eastern shore I love my hometown. Dr. Brown, he wanted me to give Dr. Brown delivered me. And he gave me my name you shaney pink it. And I didn't have a middle name. And he was the second black doctor in Salisbury. And he treated basically everyone. Everyone knew him. And he was part of the community not only Georgetown, but a neighborhood called California also. Georgetown was basically destroyed. And it's a systematic way they do things. They put highways through black neighborhoods and it destroyed the neighborhood. The Charles H. Shipman Center, which was a former John Wesley Methodist Church is the last remaining building in the city of Salisbury that will show the accomplishments that black people did we had a Tuskegee Airman, a real Moore Leonard that came from that church and lived in on Broad Street, and I just so happened found this scrapbook. I was telling him last night at a meeting with pictures of real more Leonard. He graduated from I believe Harvard University, or Tuskegee University, and he was a second lieutenant. And then he became a dentist. Then we have many prominent people. And you saw the mirror on the on the when it's first started. The gentleman in the uniform was William Butler, he found World War One and he led the parade when they came back from World War One. The next person was naturally Professor Chipman who married a pink it. Then was my cousin Elaine Brown, who Solomon Houston who was a slave for the popular man, and because that used to be a plantation years ago, Georgetown. So he was a real estate banker and real estate person. He was very wealthy as a black man during that time. Then the next person, I believe is James Stewart, who had a place across the street from the Chipman culture center. He was the first mortician in Salisbury. And then Dr. assembly, who lived across the street on the church street side across from the mural. And he was the second doctor that came into the community. And then there was also Dr. Elmer pernell he was young much younger than Dr. Brown and Dr. assembly, but he eventually when he got into service. He became a doctor and he moved in the neighborhood, which was known as California. I always love to give tours. I love to talk about the community. When we talk about racism. I never was exposed to racism. My family never talked about racism. We never talked about the lynching. And only time I was exposed to racism when we integrated schools in in Salisbury 1967. That's when I was actually exposed to it. Basically, we were sheltered from the, especially the younger shelter, because many black people had their own businesses, we had our own restaurants, we had our own movie theater we had. We had an entertainment district was that was destroyed so we didn't need to go really uptown and she went to the bank or our clothing store. We just was sheltered and we were in that community was close knit people of the community raised $4,000 to buy purchased land to get these high school when it was in the school was in a warehouse. And they raised $4,000 because the Board of Education refused to fund a new high school for the, for the black children to go to. So the communities the black community got together and had all kinds of parties and programs and raised $4,000 back in the 30s to build an high school. So, I think, as I told this young man yesterday, excuse me for you, some university. I think part of the problem race is changing people's hearts. If you don't change people's hearts. That that would be a problem. You have to be sincere if you really want racial healing. You train when a bait when a black baby is born and a white baby is born they don't know anything about race. It is a talk thing. They live with it. And I think we have to change maybe the future the young people on this, but this race and everybody, everybody needs to treat everybody equal and until we change people's hearts. And, and I think that's going to be one of the, the, the things we have to the hurdle. We have to change people heart these old people we're not going to change the hearts, the fear that old black people have, they're going to be still afraid, because this in their, it's in their mindset. So, if we can change the young people the young generation, we will have a better future. And I think that's it. Anything any questions. I think I'm going to talk about now. Well, thank you so much. It's always an honor and you lay out beautifully the story and the importance of this story and I'm just kind of going to go quickly over some of the things Michelle mentioned I mean she talked to just briefly went through and talked about the destruction of Georgetown. And that's very important to you know this work that we're doing with arch and directly connected to the King of Matthew Williams. And one of the things that's important to understand as a machine laid out specifically that destruction and so thinking about the generational impact machine mentioned the movie, having your own movie theater all of these things were so essential to black communities and about Tulsa and other areas, Salisbury and the Georgetown community is yet another example of the ways in which systemic destruction through eminent domain and other types of violence cause black communities that seek to rise from the ashes to constantly be cut down with machine at the helm and leading the descendants of Georgetown and other black community in Salisbury. They are indeed in good hands and again I'm thankful for your work machine. As you mentioned the Charles shipment cultural center is one of around 19 black businesses and residences that were destroyed systemically through eminent domain. Even the bodies in the black cemetery were exhumed to make way for highway expansion. And we sent a group of students there to preserve and archive the materials at the shipment cultural center, the materials of a Howard graduate. Dr chipman himself and others who also are part of that community and students got a firsthand account, a firsthand experience into preserving archiving materials. And with this model that we're able to develop with arch students were not students what we weren't extracting as a university or an institution, we were supporting the local archive supporting chipman and our goal is to support chipman any capacity. And that we can using the resources that we can, so that the community will center and rally around this symbol of hope, which we see as the chipman cultural center. And so, I'll turn it over to our emcee, Jack, as we so we can drive this journey forward. Thanks. Thank you so much, Dr Chavis and thank you the shields for those very helpful and informative remarks. And I think what you both speak to is the work of community archiving right and the importance of, of particularly black cultural institutions in these local spaces. So let's zoom out a little bit if we can and bring in Dr, Dr Matthews and this Westbrook to talk a little bit more about how inequities in terms of archival and institutional practices exists, for example, when black families seek to develop genealogy, or generally speaking about black histories and they run into these archival silences under resourced programs and the like. So Dr Matthews is wondering if you can maybe speak a little bit about some of the experiences you had at Howard and with HPC is more broadly in that respect. Thank you for that. I didn't really prepare comments on that but I just want to say that as a student of HPC use and as someone who has worked at an HPC you have sort of seen firsthand the lack of support that they often get financially for a long time. And those were the only institutions collecting black history. As a matter of fact, Dorothy Porter Wesley created a classification system to identify black culture and society because in the Library of Congress is classification black history and black culture were only under two numbers slavery and colonization. That's where you put black history. And so she said, she couldn't see herself putting a play from putting a poem about black history into one of those sections. She said we're so much more than slavery and colonization. And so she built the Moreland Spring on Research Center at Howard University to preserve black history. I mean, today people are kind of playing catch up to what she was doing in the 30s and 40s. I mean they're talking about collecting black women's history she was doing that in the 30s and 40s. And so throughout history it has been black institutions that have preserved the history of the black community. And now sort of today, you have other institutions interested in that history, it's become extremely popular, especially in the last two years, since the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And so now you have other institutions interested in telling that story. And now all of a sudden the HPC use find themselves having to compete for histories that normally they would just go and say, okay, we want to preserve your story. And okay, I'll take it. You know now black history sort of become commodified, you know, collections are being purchased. They'll call them donated but they're being purchased. And, you know, black institutions just can't compete with that. You know they can't compete to pay a million dollars for a collection of an important figure that probably needs to be at a black institution but there are other institutions that have the money to pay for those collections so they go to a different institution. And one of the other things that I see happening at HPC uses to now get support. They have to almost show their deficiencies, as opposed to saying, oh we have strengths in this area strengths in that area. Oh no tell us how bad you're doing and then we'll give you, you know, we'll give you the money. You know we don't care. Okay you're really strong in this area, oh you can do this you can do that. Now tell us where your, show us where the cracks are, you know, show us where the roof is leaking, you know, so we can then give you money, as opposed to other institutions which get funding based on their strengths. And it's very interesting that, you know, Charles tells that story of how the records were hidden away I'm surprised it was still there. Because, you know, archival erasure isn't just, you know, how they put the boxes in a corner somewhere they're forgotten. Often these records are destroyed, for these records are thrown away in the trash to neglect. There are a few collections that are at Howard that came because it was rescued from the trash. It is, it collects him a very prominent African American woman that's at Howard that was saved because they're doing construction on our house. And the construction worker was in the basement he saw these papers and he saw the name and he said you know I don't think we should throw this in the trash. And so he thought to call more and he mentioned the person to one of the artists there, and they told me hopped in the car just drove right down and just do everything in the van they're like oh my god you can't throw this away. And so it happens from back to support it happens through neglect and ignorance. Like most people probably didn't even think to do anything with those records and so. You know, HBCUs and black institutions sort of saw that importance and so I think I'm just kind of, I may have gone off track here but I think I answered your question about sort of the role of HBCUs preserving the system. And so you certainly answered answered the question. Thank you, Dr Matthews. I think you touched on a really important point. The notion of archival erasure and Dr Chavis points to this and some of his research. Both of you could speak a little bit more to how official policies that are that are adhered to through local and state archives how they themselves perpetuate and allow in many cases erasure to occur. Dr Chavis you might speak specifically to some of their attention schedules. Sure. So one of the things that we've been running up against most recently with the work that we've been doing with the Maryland lynching truth and reconciliation Commission, we've been requesting records. After gaining access to retention schedules from the state archives, all archives, at least in the state of Maryland is retention schedule for all organizations institutions that are chartered, including cities by the state. There's a retention schedule as to where if you have a city police department fire department. There's a retention schedule that lays out where said records go there's a schedule of boxes materials and other collections. And it's a list detailed list signed off by the archivist state archivist and in doing this research and work on behalf of the Commission. But then a number of these retention schedules that are legally binding have not been adhered to and some of the materials had either has either been lost or destroyed, we're yet to know exactly where the material is but you know that is something that I think state archives and institutions have to be able to deal with and confront and something that we think is very widespread based on our preliminary examination. And so in many ways, you, for example, for a police department. We, if there's a police department that has records on the books documented in their retention schedule pertaining to homicides dating back to say 90 years. And there's a folder listed oftentimes and everything you need to know. And once you submit a request asking for any of those files, you may get an email or response and writing, stating that no such records exist. Right. And so the, there's a direct contradiction that we're noticing within these retention schedules in exactly what is there and no one is doing the proper assessment of it, regarding the enforcement of these retention schedules and that's our attorneys with the commission are looking into but it speaks to, again, those less lesser known bureaucratic tools that are used to erase on the history of communities in the history of anti black violence. Right. And it's no secret that in many ways these records. The records around policing and other records are those records that are in my right. And so we're hoping that what the work that we're doing with state commission but also this work highlights the importance of enforcing these retention schedules, as well as other mechanisms that are put in place to make sure that records are preserved properly and protocol is properly fall and follow within the archival process. So just one example that we're dealing with currently as we seek to procure records for regarding the investigation that we're doing in regarding the 40 plus racial terror lynchings in the state of Maryland. Lopez I'll turn over you but the retention schedule something that we're wrestling with now. Okay, well I guess one of the things that I would add to that is that sometimes the size. of a state or federal archive can lead to erasure. For example I worked at narrow for four years, and I worked on the records of the European theater of operations for the Agiton General during World War two. And there is a collection of material on African American soldiers were falsely accused of rape who were executing who they knew were innocent. But they were executing them because they understood that it would anger white troops if they weren't executed. And there's a whole discussion with newspaper clippings and everything in this folder. And it's in I think one of the boxes in the 300s in correspondence. And so you would never find that photo, because it's in the 300s of a 900 box series. And so, who would think that you would find information on that subject in that section. And so sometimes it's highlighted because I was the person doing the processing. So it stuck out to me so I made note of it on the description. So you can find it now but if someone like me wasn't working on the records, it would just be lost in the shuffle and you'd never be able to find that. And so I think that sometimes that's what happens to these records, especially as many archives are underfunded in just in general archives are underfunded, and they don't have enough staff and then there are archival processes that for the effort of speed. You don't really do the detail, like Charles mentioned, you don't do item level processing, you do general processing and so you don't really get a sense of what's really in the collection until someone actually looks through, looks through it and so sometimes I think that leads to every issue especially at larger archives. And as we speak about these, these issues of official policy, perpetuating anti blackness in the archives. Miss Elaine Westbrooks, I want to pull from your expertise a little bit as well on models for repairing some of these problematic practices, and maybe you could speak a little bit to your experience there in terms of repair models, but also the issue of predominantly white institutions poaching and or extracting from from black histories and how there's an issue of trust trustworthiness in terms of predominantly white institutions, working with black cultural institutions in that respect. Sure, I mean I can actually start by referring to your previous question which is about the inequities, and I mean it's very clear that how, how we decide what is worthy and what's important who gets to decide that when they decided is all a deeply inequitable process, and then at that next layer is how do you describe it, and the way you describe it can make it lost forever. I could talk a little bit about our Southern historical collection at the University of North Carolina. It is a huge archive of 1000 5000 collections, which is known as a major collection on the history of the American however, it is very centered on whiteness and on on a white narrative of what the history of the South should be right and so one of the things that historically white universities like UNC Chapel Hill have started to do is to begin down this path of community driven archives. It's really a different kind of process, other than taking things extracting them from communities and bringing them back to Chapel Hill, where they are put into archives that are organized by white archivists and white librarians describe the praise everything is done. And centered under whiteness right and so what we're trying to do is to no longer do that process and to work directly with communities and partner with communities. With the idea that there are history keepers throughout the state, and we work with them directly and the goal is not to bring things to Chapel Hill like that's not the only option right and so we realize that there are stories that are missing we know that's that there are, there's a major erasure, and that the materials and that we know are missing and the gaps and silences are intentional right and so there's no such thing as a neutral archive. There's no such thing as a neutral library. Right, these choices were made specifically, it is up to us now to redress them. And so this whole idea of a place like Chapel Hill directly working with African American communities providing tools to help the history keepers and history makers archive their own history and so we do something called archives in a backpack, where we provide those tools so that people can go out and do their own family histories. And so that's one part. The other thing I wanted to mention, which is becoming more common is this whole idea of what we call conscious editing. And so what we find is that scholars like Dr Chavis can't find anything right because the people who describe the materials. We're not thinking about black bodies right and so they would have described the enslavers but they don't want to describe that those who were enslaved right and so or they call plan they don't they refer to plantations. And so they were nice places when they were labor camps right and so there's all these euphemisms and terms that are hidden in the description. And so what we're trying to do is to redress historical inequities and injustices in ways languages used in archives and special collections. These efforts include replacing racist and derogatory language and removing bias language that assumes whiteness as a default. It also involves updating unbalanced descriptions and bringing the voices and experiences of marginalized groups to the forefront. Hidden lies and erase histories thus become discoverable for researchers in the classroom and through exhibitions. And so those are just two things is conscious editing. And specifically doing this community driven archives that historically white institution can begin doing because you know UNC Chapel Hill has been around since 1789. We've been, you know, we're the first public university we were doing this work prior to the Civil War. Correct. And so we have a deep deep history of doing things in a certain kind of way. It has taken us and I mean historically white institutions this much time to realize that this is wrong. We have to do something and we have a responsibility to change what we're doing to because the archives are a critical part of understanding where we've been to make sense of the present to to build a better future. And if we don't start doing these things right now, this is a disservice to the citizens of this country to disservice to the democracy that we're trying to support. And this is a disservice as an institution of higher learning to actually set up these systems that we know are deeply inequitable. I think a lot of what this conversation has been getting at part is that we as practitioners and scholars have just as much to learn from community history keepers and community archivists as as they can learn from us. And I sort of touched on that miss Westbrook's in terms of working with these, these, these community institutions directly and deferring to them in terms of ensuring that they're able to retain custody of their records. I mentioned the notion of vocabulary and some of the descriptive standards that that institutions normally normally use. Have you had any experiences with working directly with with these these community institutions, and ensuring that they're able to self describe their records and sort of moving away from those controlled vocabularies that as you say tend to send a witness. Well I would say that's the whole point is for not for historically white institution to not drive every decision. Right and so we've been really fortunate because a lot of this work we have has been funded by the Mellon Foundation. And one of the challenges we have is the way these grants are set up. It's very difficult to be able to allocate resources to the to the groups on the grant that actually deserve it the most right and so this is one of the things we've, you know I've been really thinking about as we work with funders to find more flexibility because essentially the way to set up is all the money funnels through my institution. When the reality is we want the money to be in the hands of the community members. And so we're working with artists we're working with students we're working with people throughout the entire state on historically black towns and things like that. And so the whole point is that they make the decisions that are important for their community, and we're there to provide some assistance and guidance and support. That's it. And when you get to the point where you're acting like a white savior or you're trying to like you're trying to do too much. Like you have to have the sense to step back and say, Okay, I am centering. You know, I stored the white institution and whiteness and that's not what the goal is. And I think that is something that we take really seriously and we always have that voice in our ear telling us that it is not our job to run everything. It's not our job to say I'm here from UNC chapel here I'm here to help, because quite honestly we have 200 years of history that has demonstrated that we have not been trustworthy. We have not worked with communities well, we have made really poor decisions, and, and it's going to take quite a bit of time for us to change that narrative because we have to constantly earn the trust and respect of the partners we work with. I'm so glad that you mentioned that lane and I'm sorry to just jump in here check. That's something that I'm glad you mentioned and I hope people really take the heart and understand because I've worked with some major funders and they really do not understand that they're like but I want to give you all of this money to support I'm going to give this white institution, all of this money to support your institution. And they can't understand the black community saying I don't care how much money you have, you're never touching this. The statement was we rather burn it, then give it to this institution to do what they want with our history. And I don't think people really understand that there is a certain level of mistrust of these institutions. You know you have a history and people know it, you know, just because you don't think they know your history, they do. There are many large white institutions that are attempting to preserve black history and having our time is they're not addressing the sort of elephant in the room that their institution has treated the black community horribly. And I speak for the black community because I understand black history I don't attempt to speak for other communities I can speak for what I'm familiar with and so you know, that's one thing that they don't really understand. It comes down to partnering with black institutions, you have major majority institutions attempting to partner with black institutions, and they say oh will digitize your collection and put it in our institutional repository. So wait a minute. If you have a copy of our collection, who will come to us to research that history. Nobody. And then how will it remain how will it be described, how will it be available, you know what will be available after the initial connection is gone. And because you're a larger institution with more eyes on you. The smaller institution become invisible, and people assume that the collection is only at that larger institution. And then, here's the idea that here's an idea that Oh, we'll take it because the black institution can't preserve it in perpetuity. They just won't be able to do it there's the assumption of inferiority. And you can, you know and you can sense it you can feel it you can see it, even in conversations where we tried to work with community archives and we encourage major archives to work with communities, get them involved in doing the work. And there was this pushback of oh no no no, but they won't know what they're doing. And this type of yeah that's why I told you to train them what to do. Because, you know, like they mentioned control vocabularies. That doesn't work with a lot of black institutions because you'll miss a lot of the history, because it's not a part of the control vocabulary. And that's why you'll have a picture of Mary McLeod Bethune in a major white archive that's described as unknown black woman. And you look at it you go really unknown black woman, this is one of the major figures of the 20th century and she's described in your catalog as unknown black woman. Now I'll email him like hey, that's wrong. And they'll go Oh my God, I'm like but why was it wrong in the first place. And so that then takes us into, you need more people of color in the archival field, who can do this work, who can be in these places to say, you know, know this is what this is. Let me explain to you what this is so you can understand it so when you're doing the description. It can be correct, because you have someone with knowledge of that community there. And so that's just my comment. Now I just want to add that's why I use the term, historically white university. It's not predominantly. It's historically my institution was built to educate the slave holders. It's not historic, it's not predominantly. And that's why I wish that we will stop using that word pwy and start using like HBC you be white wHCU because that's, that's the reality that you have to acknowledge that major factor. I'm so glad that you, Jack, let me know if I'm good on time but I am. I'm so glad you acknowledge that importance Lopez specifically at the community level. And this is why arch is so important and what we're trying to do at the national level so important, because we really feel that these community and local stories are what are going to help inform and to promote narrative change but also systemic change in the communities right when we think about systemic inequalities and outcomes around education and other things. And, you know, we don't recognize that there's a system systematic flow to this right regarding as to why you don't see any black businesses in your community why you don't know about a lot of this history for our students who came from George Mason University, the White University and Lane will steal your that from you. We had students come in who are working and coming from a predominantly white institutions both black and white students, and they were absolutely astonished to know about know the fact that Frederick Douglass and others spoke at this church to learn about some of the black community leaders who were who own hotels in the city that were on the green book, who fought next next to patent and others. You know, this history and when we don't value archives and, you know, humanities, and we don't make it provide opportunities for students of color and communities of color to be engaged in the humanities. We miss out on the importance of sharing local history and utility of local history, and how they can inform and really empower our youth specifically around one of the things in Salisbury the machine is has been working to advocate for is economic empowerment that something that I really appreciate from Miss Cheney in her experiences are the way she vocally talks about the empowering elements of having what your own right having your own community. All of us talk about integration we talked about, you know how monumental that was yes, in many ways it was monumental, but for communities such as Georgetown and communities such as the communities in Salisbury and many communities around this country. You know, there's a value in having and being able to control your own story. Right. And as archival materials and records are extracted from black communities. They lose black communities lose the power to tell their own stories in the way that they wish and Jack myself and others have been also doing oral history interviews with the descendants of victims and perpetrators around racial terror lynching. And we've had to be very delicate and go against the grain in terms of the policies and practices, making sure that it's understood from those who wish to participate and be a part of any type of collaborative that these stories belong to those who share their own history and share that it's and I think we can talk about what's legal. I mean we can talk, or we can talk about what is just right. And I think that is where we're at in terms of this field, I come on, I come at archives from a research perspective. But for me, I think we've got to begin to have a conversation about moving away from things that are status quo, the ways in which we've, we develop deed of gifts, the ways in which we talk about rights and permissions that there is a sense of equity that an understanding specifically around the ways in which we share communities of color story, we have to recognize that that is indeed a privilege to do so if we're granted with that privilege. But it always should be we should always be centered around the individual in the communities and really supporting those communities. And that's why with arch. The way we center the arch concept and from a local to national perspective, it will be centered in those community institutions right. And when we think about the digital space and this is Lopez's area. Even in terms of site development right. We want the sites of local institute local institutions community centers, like shipment to be the targeted areas where people can go, so they can benefit from the exposure and benefit from sharing again their When me and the students went to Salisbury and people from the community noticed that we were in town documenting this history, a lot of them came sharing their materials with scrapbooks. A group of high school friends came to share their experiences, you know, both good and bad. And Ms. Shanie talks about the silence within the older community that silence is about to, at Lane's point, this lack of trust from outside forces and institutions. And what I've recognized, and it's consistent with what I've seen in my own family, the way we deal with our history, but also to Lopez's point, we would rather, in many ways, let it deteriorate or sit and be destroyed versus giving it over to someone who has exploited our stories and has not valued our humanity. And so that's something that we have to reckon with. And it's difficult work, but through the arch, we will do this work and it may take us longer, but it's necessary. Because again, a lot of these things, the way we approach communities regarding their records and their stories, a lot of these approaches have been retraumatizing to these communities. We have to recognize that. You know, Jack, I just want to mention one thing and I think I really want people to know is that this is about memory, right? Like what our society chooses to remember and what we choose to forget is critical. And so these conversations about critical race there, all these things, it's about who controls the memory, who controls the narrative and how we as a community think about truth and memory. And so that's why archives in these communities, the work that they do is so critical because this lost cause narrative, this myth has been pervasive for so long and we're constantly fighting against that myth that the poor Confederates and how they were wronged and it was about state rights and thinking that the civil war was not about slavery, right? And so it's important for our students and young people to understand that if you're an activist and you want to be in the memory business, you have to be about history and archives and whether they're institutional archives, community archives, whatever kind of archives they are critical, you have to know what is there and you have to demand that they are inclusive and you have to demand that you belong because if you don't, it's just not gonna happen. And so we need like Lopez said, we need people, we need more people of color doing this kind of work because when you're in there, you're describing it when all the things that you're doing, you find things, you understand things and learn things that nobody else will. And that's what I would really love to see is just more people of color in the archives profession. There's, you know, we have historians too but we need more in the profession. And I just wanted to mention, I know I meant to mention earlier but there are examples of partnerships that are, you know, seeking to work together like Elaine mentioned, they have their partnership at UNC at Howard. We have a great partnership with, well, we, I just left Howard last week, so I still say, but there is a great partnership with Penn State and they partner to digitize collections at Moreland to make them available on Moreland's repository. So because they want the information to be made more widely available, like we digitize a collection of Anna Julia Cooper, a prominent black feminist and educator of the early 20th century. They have a Anna Julia Cooper Center, the Anna Julia Cooper papers are at Moreland. So a partner had them digitized at Moreland, hired a student to digitize them. And now they're available for the world to see on the digital Howard website. And so, you know, that's, and that's just one example of a positive collaboration because there was no discussion about we're gonna take this collection and we're gonna do this or they just say, oh, we just want to support you and how can we support you? And they let Howard drive the conversation on how we engaged and how we worked on that collection. So there are some good partnerships out there. So I just wanted to make note of that. I know I forgot to mention that. Great, if it's okay with our panelists, I know we're getting a lot of activity in chat. So I would like to return to some of the questions that have been posed in the chat. And perhaps you all could, our panelists could help with some of those questions. I'm gonna start with a question from Anna or perhaps Anna. I apologize if I'm mispronouncing your name. But we have a question here. Beyond donations, what else can non-archivists do? Can patrons who visit various institutions challenge those institutions to search their records slash archives as an attempt to bring hidden materials to the surface? So again, what else can non-archivists do in this space? Anybody wanna take a crack at that? I would say support the archives in getting budgets to hire more people. Getting budgets to create internship programs to teach students to work with those collections. I wouldn't necessarily say going in and challenging them about their collections, because as I mentioned, archives are always, well, most archives are underfunded and under-resourced. And that may not get you the intended response. But I do think that mentioning that, okay, you have this collection. How can we support preparative work at your archive? How can we support processing these collections at your archive? How can we talk to our elected officials to say, hey, these archives need more support, they need more funding, and it's up to you to give them the money they need to do the work that they need to make this history accessible to everybody. So I think that that, in my opinion, I think that's the best way to go about it. Because the person on the ground usually isn't the person in control of those decisions anyway. I'm gonna just extend on what Lopez was saying. I'm gonna say, if you see something, do something, right? And for me, when I discovered these records at the state archives, I volunteered to process. I was a student, again, working with for Minara and Library of Congress employee and archivist Dr. Deborah Newman Hammett Morgan State. And so I was already trained and I volunteered to process and really just pull together this collection, which was the basis for my book. And I think there's a lot of different ways in which people can be engaged in the archives. But if you see something or are made aware of something, till Lopez's point about the staffing and the vastness of various collections, figure out if there are any volunteer opportunities to be able to, or training opportunities even to begin this work and process, because it's gonna take, as much as we hope to get staff increased in the areas of archives and libraries, it's still going to take an army of volunteers as well to help process these collections, but also to transcribe. Coming up, I believe, if it's not happened already, we have the 1950 census that'll be coming up and we'll need transcribers to be able to do some of that work so that families and others can begin to have access to their family's histories and stories. And so I think volunteering is very important. But I do think in many ways, you can, we can assume that institutions are aware of their collections and what they have. And if we were able to stumble upon something in the ways that I have, I did, then we should do something and ask for ways to support or how we can learn about preserving and supporting the preservation of these materials. May I just add that to both what Dr. Chavis and Dr. Matthews said, which is primary resources are important and they should be built in curricula at every level of education. It is never too early to get into the archives and to understand the history of your university, the history of your school. It just needs to be a part of the curriculum. And if we were, if you could advocate for that, that would be very helpful. Thank you all for your very helpful responses to that question. We have another question from Laura, who is a student and she is wondering if an institution has to choose between either thoroughly describing each collection and leaving archives unprocessed or minimally processed. Do you think one or the other does more or less harm overall? And then specifically for Dr. Chavis, how would this choice affect the research community and does it depend on the collection? Jack, could you run that by one more time? I'm sorry, you know, take a second, go around for me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'll do the, I think the bigger question here, which is if an institution has to choose between either thoroughly describing each collection and leaving archives unprocessed or minimally processed, do you think one or the other does more or less harm overall? And this is for all the panelists. I would take the minimal process over nothing at all because at least they all then allow you to see the collection and then people can do research and then you'll know what's in the collection based on the research that others have done into the collection. But some process, many institutions won't let you see it. And so, you know, I would take the minimal process. I mean, the optimal is to have a thoroughly processed but I would take the minimal over unprocessed because if it's unprocessed then you won't be able to see it at all. I mean, I would add that again, it goes back to funding. You need the funding to do this work. It's, you know, we get collections. I don't like to take collections if I don't have the support to make them accessible. I think it is deeply irresponsible for institutions to take collections that they don't have the resources to make accessible. It is not responsible to take things and to put them on shelves for years and people don't get access to them. We have to learn how to be better about that and it always comes down to funding. A lot of play, we just get more stuff, get more stuff, get more stuff. That is not the goal to having stuff and not making accessible is an empty victory. And we have to change that mindset. If you can't bring it in and manage it, maybe it doesn't belong at your institution, right? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but we need to take better care of the things that we have and stop chasing all these new collections. Great. And I wanna just address a string of questions and then we'll transition to speaking more specifically to the Chipman Arch. But there's a few questions in the chat about different forms of repatriation and reparations. So we have some folks wondering if you all believe that there has been a movement to, for example, return black collections to historically black institutions from white institutions and what some of those policy changes might look like or should look like moving forward. Yeah, that's an interesting question. And that's not something that I have thought about quite a bit because there's so many ways by which you acquire collections, right? And there are not often a lot of, surprisingly, I mean, they're just not all, often materials and information to tell you about the provenance of the collections, because I'm talking, I'm going back to 1789 here. But I think it's an important question to ask is, can you do an audit? Do you have things in your collection that were acquired ethically and do you have the information documents to back it up? And I would say that that is something, that is a huge undertaking. And I speak for my institution that literally has millions of manuscripts. And, but I think it is something that definitely has to be put on the table. I think museums are doing much better about this and museums are more object-driven, different kinds of institutions than archives. But I think it's something that is really important for us to be looking at and considering. Great, thank you. I want to transition and give Dr. Chavis some time here to discuss the archive for racial and cultural healing. And in particular, pulling this back to the Black community in Salisbury and the Chipman Arch. So Dr. Chavis, if you would like to perhaps give us a call to action as we begin to rack things up. Sure, so on February 25th, 2021, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Senator Cory Booker introduced legislation to the US House and Senate calling for the establishment of a US Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Commission. A key component to this call and to their efforts was the establishment of a national archive for cultural and racial healing. And as we began to work together with our team, including Dr. Lopez, again, Marcus Hunter of UCLA, Dr. Marcus Hunter of UCLA, as well as other national coalition leaders. We were inspired by the story of the Georgetown community, the story and resilience of this community and their descendants. And as we seek to expand and build on and promote this legislation to establish a US commission and a national arch, we want to announce that after the Chipman Board voted last night, the first arch in the nation that will be established will be the Charles and Jeanette Chipman Archive for Cultural and Racial Healing. And I wanted to make that official announcement and it's okay to clap virtually, however you do that. And it's something that we've been working towards, but we are as official as of last night. I took, as I mentioned, I took a group of students to the Chipman Cultural Center for a week to get an assessment of the existing collection that is already on site. And it's indeed an amazing collection. There's a lot of materials pertaining to the black education. As I mentioned, Dr. Charles Chipman was a graduate of Howard. He started the Salisbury High School in Salisbury, Maryland, which was in many ways like most traditional high schools during that time period in the 30s and the 20s. It was a place where people came from across in many ways state lines and across other counties. It was a hub for black education and in his collection will be housed within the Archive for Cultural and Racial Healing housed virtually at the Charles Chipman Cultural Center. We were able to process, begin processing some rare books dating back to the 1870s. And so students were indeed amazed, but we're also indeed honored to be able to make this announcement on behalf of the Charles Chipman Cultural Center and also on behalf of the descendants of Georgetown and the black community. And Jack, I don't know if we have an actual image of the actual layout or something that we can show. I feel like it was in the documents of exactly not so much the phases, but what we're going to be doing with that archive. And I'll just talk as you find that, Jack, the list of the actual elements there. So in terms of the National Arch and the concept, as justice and healing work is done locally, we want to make sure that archival work and narrative change work is done locally as well. And so we re-inverted the paradigm regarding the ways in which we approach archives and supporting cultural institutions. And we've decided to center all of the support directly into Chipman and into these local cultural institutions. As I mentioned, Chipman is one the only building that remains of this black community, the only institution. And with that, we'll be developing a 3D digitally recreated interactive map that will be housed on the Chipman's website. ID cards that profile victim survivors and descendants, places of power that highlight the homes, businesses, community spaces of Georgetown, Cuba, California, and Jersey, all areas of the black community. The individuals that Ms. Shaney talked about so eloquently, all of those individuals, their stories, their families, where our goal is to salvage those stories and present them to the world and to the community. There will be oral history interviews that will be stored on the website as well. Timeline, documenting, the disposition and destruction of Georgetown, one of the things that's essential about the arch and this concept and this frame is the ways in which, it's important for us to understand the ways in which archival work, research, materials gleaned from archives can be used to provide evidence of historic wrongdoing and harm. And in many ways, we definitely see that playing out and we are documenting that as we speak this disposition and we're in the digital map, there'll be a literally a tracking regarding the ways in which the community and the area was dispossessed. In addition to that, we'll have knowledge cards and reading lists and also curriculum, something that is extremely important as well. To Elaine's point, we have to begin early in getting youth and engaged in not only archives but also local history and we will be doing that as well and supporting the Chipman Cultural Center. It's important to also understand that again, those who wish to collaborate and be a part of this have to agree to center these efforts around Chipman and we are honored to have amazing partners. We have a partner in RJ Rami of Art Studios who will be providing his services to develop the nation's first sample or example of an archive for cultural racial healing. We just received confirmation from Morgan State University that they will be donating the remaining archival materials needed to preserve and to shore up the Chipman's current collection. And so many ways we wanted to make this announcement today on this historic moment and this historic day, following after we just signed into law the anti-lynching bill that took over almost 100 years, over 100 years to sign, we think it is important for us to recognize these institutions that still remain and to center our efforts and our support and our resources directly to supporting these communities and their descendants, making sure that they're able to tell the story in the way they wish. So I'll turn it over from there to Jack, our emcee and I'd love to take questions or get any comments as well from the audience. Thank you, Jack. Thank you Dr. I want to mention that the power of arch and if you were to think of this question of if you were gonna build an archive today, what would it look like? Would you build it like we've done it in the past when they're extremely exclusive? We didn't want people coming in. You had to have white gloves to touch everything. I mean, it was a very exclusive place that was where you had to go, right? And so I think what's important is that we're talking about a distributed community driven process that's inclusive that has some infrastructure that people can attach and that the barriers of entry are very low, right? That's what we need. And so that the historical society could participate at the same level of a historically white institution or a historically black institution. And so that's what I love about this whole process is we would never do it the way we used to do it. Like we want a new system that is truly inclusive and allows so many people to participate and allows us to really think of the archival practices in very different kinds of way so that we can dismantle those systems that were inequitable and to start a new system that we think is truly equitable. Thank you for that. May I say something? May I say something? This is Shanie. Please do. I just wanna let you know, I agree wholeheartedly what she said and I do know that Chipman is always open, we're open door policy. Anytime anyone wants to come in, we give tours and things. And of course, I would greatly appreciate people who want to know about their history. Like I said, we had all this stuff boxed up and when we looked at it, I was amazed. I just was amazed what was in there from Professor Chipman and other donations we received. So I definitely will say, and I know the board would say that people would have access to look at that material. We would not keep it hidden. Thank you, Ms. Shields. And one more thing, if I could just add, I think Alene and Dr. Chavis laid out the vision for Chipman arch and also the scalability of arch to state national level very aptly. And I think what the arch gets at, the impetus of course for the arch in part is atoning for instances of racial terror lynching that happened throughout the United States. But at the same time, what the arch concept allows us to do is also recognize that black communities existed and thrived before instances of racial terror lynching and they existed and thrived and persisted after instances of racial terror lynching and that these communities are not solely defined by anti-blackness. And that's a really important piece of the story and part of the narrative change that Ms. Sheaney just spoke to and that Dr. Chavis is hoping to achieve through this model. I think this is a good time to begin wrapping things up. I wanted to thank once again, our incredible panelists for their expertise today and also for everybody in the audience who has joined us. If you all have outstanding questions, please post them in the chat before we sign off. We are going to be saving the chat and doing our best to get back to those who did not have their questions answered. And you all will also notice that Catherine has posted a link to a post recording survey. If you wish to stay in touch and a prize of the efforts of the arch and you wish to stay in touch in particular with Dr. Chavis and the work that he's doing, please fill out that brief survey and we will get back to you. In addition, for those who attended today, we will be following up with a recording link as well as some follow-up materials, some one-pagers and graphics and the like that explain this work in a little bit more detail. So thank you again so much everybody for being with us for joining us today and we appreciate your engagement. Thank you again to our panelists. Thank you. Thank you all. And if the panelists are able to hang out on Zoom, that would be great. Thank you. Great.