The Charles W. Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies at Coastal Carolina University hosted its second International Gullah Geechee and African Diaspora Conference (IGGAD) in early March 2020. Historians, lecturers, librarians, and scholars met to speak about how to fill the gaps of archiving the under-archived. There is an urgency to save the stories of the Gullah Geechee community before it is lost entirely due to the evolution of modern life (i.e. communities evolving, influence of outside sources, land development, etc.).
Though libraries strive for non-bias and complete collections to serve their communities, gaps still exist, many of them inherited from predecessors. “Collection development and management in all types of libraries require close contact with users,” however, when many collections were originally being built, the goal was not close contact with the entire community, but segregation (Johnson, 2009, pg. 47). Archival collections particularly suffer from this lack in closeness with the African American community, though they have been a huge part of the country’s history since before its founding.
South Carolina had a clear black majority from about 1708 through most of the eighteenth century. By 1720 there were approximately 18,000 people living in South Carolina – and 65% of these were African-Americans slaves… South Carolina’s slave population grew in accordance with the success of its rice culture. Whereas in 1790 there were slightly more whites than blacks living in South Carolina, by 1860 the non-white population (which also included Native Americans) had grown to nearly 60%. South Carolina had a tremendous number of slaves, especially given its small size. (Trinkley).
Table 1
The Charles W. Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies at Coastal Carolina University hosted its second International Gullah Geechee and African Diaspora Conference (IGGAD) in early March 2020. Historians, lecturers, librarians, and scholars met to speak about how to fill the gaps of archiving the under-archived. There is an urgency to save the stories of the Gullah Geechee community before it is lost entirely due to the evolution of modern life (i.e. communities evolving, influence of outside sources, land development, etc.).
Under the title Without Borders: Tracing the Cultural, Archival, and Political African Diaspora, the conference focused on the politics and mechanics of digitizing and preserving the African Diaspora. Though African-Americans have been a major part of South Carolina’s population since it was an original colony, this segment of the community has been vastly under-represented in literature, local histories, and archival collections.
IGGAD’s Keynote Panel Imagining Archives without Borders, brought together Steven G. Fullwood, Miranda Mims, and Chaitra Powell to discuss making archives more accessible and more encompassing of communities of lesser representation. To do this, the panelists stressed the importance of stretching the boundaries of what archives are and where they may be located.
Mims said that the location of archives in places like “institutions,” be it museums, universities, or large libraries, is intimidating to a community of people who have been historically told that place was not for them. This not only makes them less likely to access collections, but also less likely to agree to share their stories with such institutions (Mims, 2020). Some people do not want their stories in the repositories of institutions. “The power to control one’s own legacy matters more” than the story being saved for everyone else. “Believe in the path to choose” (Mims, 2020).
Mims also echoed the American Library Association’s recommendations for collecting local histories. Librarians/archivists must create trust and communication within their communities. When building these collections, it is the archivist’s duty to “research and understand the history that is unique to the locality” and “establish and maintain a dialog… Consider what is currently being collected” (The Local History Committee, 2008). Collections are not all about the librarian’s feelings and preferences, but should reflect their community and the wishes of all people groups reflected within a collection.
Fullwood agreed that the old gap created by generations past still shows itself in archival collections. “There’s a gulf between people and archival literacy. There’s a gulf between people and history” (Fullwood, 2020). He went on to include that access to collection has to be the top priority. “It is not enough to help build archives in communities or institutions, but I have to activate them and bring people to them” (Fullwood, 2020). Collections serve no purpose if no one uses them. Giving them life through outreach and literacy programs not only increases use, but can change the way people view their own history.
Documentarian Althea Sumpter, speaking at the IGGAD panel Family Stories, Historical Fiction, Archives, said she is still coming to terms with how her culture is being celebrated today. She grew up in a Gullah Geechee community on a sea island off the coast of South Carolina, where she was told to not draw attention to the fact that she was not only black, but part of the old slave communities. She still struggles with how openly people talk about the culture, so she understands that others too are wary to share their stories. She uses this to reach others in the community, encouraging them to tell their story and share their culture.
Archivists/librarians should not hide in the stacks. Instead, Powell suggests “encouraging people to think about who is caring for collections and what they are doing.” This can help demystify how people see archival collections and who can access them. Knowing their story means something and people who are concerned about them will be caring for their story, means something to a community that has been historically pushed aside.
Powell explained that when it comes to archival collections, “it’s a management of risk: exploitation of stories versus stories being lost.” Historically speaking, Sumpter said the elders of this community, and others like it, only passed along the information they were comfortable sharing. Collections managers should create goals that are community centered for the entire community. This would reflect to the community that the people are the most important part of the collection not the physical objects or stories. “Work so the goals and benefits of the community, not just for the institutions… not just to tick off a box of diversity” are seen at the center of the collection. Diversify the range of stories archives can share and explore community driven archives. Show the entire community they are welcome and their voice matters whether they choose to share it or not.
References
Aguayo, A. J., Patton, D. P., & Bandonis, M. (2018). Black Lives and Justice with the Archive: A Call to Action. Black Camera: An International Film Journal, 9(2), 161–168. https://doi.org/10.2979/blackcamera.9.2.11
Bey, S. (2013). Excavating the Cityscape Through Urban Tales and Local Archives. Art Education, 66(4), 14–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2013.11519227.
Haines, E. (2019). Visions from behind a desk? Archival performance and the re‐enactment of colonial bureaucracy. Area, 51(1), 25–34.
Evans, G.E. & Saponaro, M.Z. (2012). Collection Management Basics (6th ed.). Libraries Unlimited. Santa Barbara, California.
Fullwood, S. G. (6 March 2020). ‘We are the ones we’ve been waiting for’: Building Community Archives [Conference panel session]. International Gullah Geechee and African Diaspora Conference at Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts at Coastal Carolina University.
Johnson, P. (2009). Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management (2nd ed.). American Library Association. Chicago.
Mims, M. (6 March 2020). Archival-Futurism: Archiving without Borders [Conference panel session]. International Gullah Geechee and African Diaspora Conference at Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts at Coastal Carolina University.
Powell, C. (6 March 2020). Beyond Custodial: Curation in the 21st Century [Conference panel session]. International Gullah Geechee and African Diaspora Conference at Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts at Coastal Carolina University.
Sumpter, A. (6 March 2020). Making Peace with the Stories You Fail to Get [Conference panel session]. International Gullah Geechee and African Diaspora Conference at Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts at Coastal Carolina University.
The Local History Committee of the History Section, Reference and Adult Services Association, American Library Association. (29 September 2008). RUSA Guidelines for Establishing Local History Collections. American Library Association. Retrieved March 18, 2020 from http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/guidelinesestablishing.
Thompson, Cheryl. (2018). Searching For Black Voices In Canada’s Archives: The Invisibility of a “Visible” Minority. PUBLIC, 29(57), 88–95. https://doi.org/10.1386/public.29.57.88_1.
Trinkley, Michael. (n.d.). South Carolina – African-Americans – Slave Population. South Carolina’s Information Highway. Retrieved March 18, 2020 from https://www.sciway.net/afam/slavery/population.html.
Witteveen, A. (2019, November 1). African American Archives: Preserving history and increasing access. Library Journal, 144(10), 6A.
Appendix A
Keynote Panel: Imagining Archives without Borders
Steven G. Fullwood is a documentarian, archivist and writer. He is the co-founder of The Nomadic Archivists Project, an initiative that partners with organizations, institutions, and individuals to establish, preserve, and enhance collections that explore the African Diasporic experience. Fullwood is the former assistant curator of the Manuscripts, Archives & Rare Books Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 1998, he founded the In the Life Archive (ITLA) to aid in the preservation of materials produced by LGBTQ people of African descent.
Miranda Mims is the Special Collections Archivist for Discovery and Access and Curator of modern literature and publishers, human rights and social justice, and local LGBTQ history and culture in the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP) at the University of Rochester. She is the co-founder of the Nomadic Archivist Project (NAP), an awardee of the Society of American Archivists Foundation (SAAF). NAP is an initiative devoted to developing relationships and beginning conversations around preserving legacy, memory, connection, and trust in the African diaspora. Mims is formerly an archivist at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and at Catholic University's Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literature and its Institute of Christian Oriental Research (ICOR).
Chaitra Powell is the African American Collections & Outreach Archivist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Library Journal named Powell a 2017 Mover & Shaker in the library field for her efforts in making marginalized voices central to the archives. She has spearheaded the African American Families Documentation Initiative since 2014, and supplied guidance to community archiving projects like the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum. She received both her B.A. in Sociology (’07) and M.A. in Library Science (’10) from The University of Arizona.
Powell embodies the critical task of synthesizing African American cultural artifacts that have been historically hidden or neglected. Powell has coined the term “community-driven archives” as a methodology for communities to understand the importance of their stories, to participate in conversations of cultural preservation alongside researchers and practitioners, and to distribute the agency in collecting and accessioning materials. Powell is the project director for a multi-year Mellon Grant focused on developing tools and strategies to support community driven archives, such as Archivist in a Backpack, which translates the oral history process into an accessible and affordable backpack kit.
Moderator: Alli Crandell is the Director of The Athenaeum Press and Digital Initiatives in the Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts at Coastal Carolina University. She is the co-Principal Investigator of the Gullah Geechee Digital Project, funded by the NHPRC, among other grant initiatives.
Panel: Family Stories, Historical Fiction, Archives
Moderator: Scott Bacon is the Digital Initiatives Librarian at Kimbel Library and Bryan Information Commons at Coastal Carolina University.
Developing Online Archives for Interactive Humanities Projects
Betsy Newman, SCETV Producer & Patrick Hayes, Independent Multimedia Producer
Two South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV) projects funded by the NEH, “Between the Waters” (2016) and “Reconstruction 360” (2019), bring Lowcountry history to life with interactive, nonlinear narratives. Production of these large scale multimedia humanities projects involved the extensive collection and digitization of documents, images, video, and audio assets. SCETV representatives present these projects and lead discussions on how to utilize this media in an online archive with strategies toward that goal. In addition, the potential for publishing previously unseen media including digitized images, films, and unedited interviews with witnesses, scholars, and interpreters are discussed in open forum dialogues.
Making Peace with the Stories You Fail to Get
Althea Natalga Sumpter, Independent Researcher and Scholar
Sumpter never took the opportunity to interview her grandparents, being too young to imagine that she would later want to hear the stories they could share about their lives from as far back as the late 1800s. Sumpter once actually held a slave pass from 1837 naming a great-relative who had permission to leave Oaks Plantation on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, for an errand in downtown Beaufort. That pass vanished after various family members laid claim to items Sumpter had discovered while searching family homes. If only she had never told anyone about those documents and family photos, or even about some oral histories she had recorded from family elders. Now having made peace about the oral histories that she failed to collect, Sumpter has created a way to write stories that incorporate the recordings she did succeed in preserving.
Subversive Cartography of the Lowcountry
Judith L. Strathearn, Lecturer, Metropolitan University of Denver
The study of critical cartography allows for the questioning of traditional mapping practices and the ways in which boundary drawing reflects the power structures of society. John Pickles stated in “A History of Spaces, Cartographic Reason, Mapping, and the Geo-Coded World,” “...instead of focusing on how we can map the subject [we must] focus on [how] mapping and the cartographic gaze have coded subjects and produced identities” (Pickles 2004: 12). This presentation examines maps from Gloria Naylor’s novel “Mama Day,” Cornelia Walker Bailey’s memoir “God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man,” and other examples of hand-drawn maps of the Lowcountry as models of critical cartography that serve to articulate and denunciate the continual de- stabilizing boundaries of the Sea Islands due to tourism development, land grabbing, and taxation practices that have coded the space since the mid-twentieth century.
* This post was originally written as a paper for LIS610-01 Collections Management with Dr. J. DePolt at UNC-Greensboro in March 2020.
Comments