PARTNERSHIP
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is proud to partner with the following institutions in the creation of a national digital collection that highlights the roles and experiences of Black women in the women’s suffrage movement, as well as Black women’s history of activism, as part of the centennial celebration of the passage of the 19th Amendment:
PARTNERS
Atlanta University Center and Tuskegee University are both HBCUs with collections documenting women’s history of organizing for political action in the American South.
The Avery Research Center and Amistad Research Center are institutions committed to collecting, preserving and providing open access to the history and culture of African Americans and the diaspora.
The Southern California Library documents and makes accessible histories of struggles that challenge racism and other systems of oppression and holds extensive collections of histories of community resistance in Los Angeles and beyond.
In addition, DPLA is partnering with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library on their Engage2020: Look Back, Move Forward events.
For more detailed information about these partnerships, please click here.
The collaboration is powered by funding from Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company created by Melinda Gates.
Funds will enable the partner institutions to digitize artifacts related to the history of Black women in the suffrage movement, and, more broadly, women’s rights, voting rights and civic activism between the 1850s and the 1960s, in order to make these important collections more widely accessible.
SPECIAL THANKS
We are especially proud to center our partners’ expertise as subject specialists in this work and extend a heartfelt thank you to the project coordinators for their insightful curation:
Dana Chandler
University Archivist and Associate Professor, Tuskegee University Archives
Christopher Harter
Deputy Director, Amistad Research Center
Aaisha Haykal
Manager of Archival Services, Avery Research Center for African American History & Culture at the College of Charlesto
Yusef Omowale
Director, Southern California Library
Sarah Tanner
Head, Archives Research Center, Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library
Hannah Terrell
Branch Leader, Allegra Westbrooks Regional Library, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
Martha Yesowitch
Community Partnerships Leader, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
WEBINAR
On July 16, 2020, DPLA hosted Race, Gender, Politics, and History: Reconstructing Visibility of Black Women’s Activism.
This webinar featured a keynote by Allison Robinson, doctoral candidate in American History and American Material Culture at the University of Chicago, discussing teaching with digital exhibits, her experience working with the university’s Ida B. Wells collection, and how digital artifacts can help reconstruct visibility.
Representatives from our partner institutions also introduced the collections that they are digitizing as part of the Black Women’s Suffrage collection and provided perspective about how these artifacts can help us better understand Black women suffragists and the historical and continuing activism of Black women.
SEE LIVE RECORDING
For more information about this work, please contact DPLA Director of Community Engagement Shaneé Yvette Murrain at shanee@dp.la