Beyond Saying Their Names: A Hallowed Grounds Project (BHM 2020)
In celebration of Black History Month 2020, Hilary N. Green, associate professor in UA Department of Gender and Race Studies, devised a social media campaign (Twitter and Facebook) highlighting some of the enslaved individuals who labored at the University of Alabama. Inspired by a Georgetown University initiative, the digital flyers showcased her archival research that began in January 2015.
Specific collections used include: Early Administrative Records, Faculty Minutes, Basil Manly Diaries, Landon Garland Letterbooks, the Corollas (UA yearbooks), and two UA paid subscriptions (Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com). In other words, all readily accessible archival collections contained at the University of Alabama.
Why does Black History Month still matter in 2020? Woodson's original charge of countering the historical propaganda promoted against people of African descent persists as evidenced by the tenor of 1619 Project debates. Woodson, W. E. B. Du Bois, A.A. Taylor, Mertze Tate, Lerone Bennett, Jr., John Hope Franklin, Barbara Fields, Nicole Hannah Jones, and others have responded since the inception of Negro History Week (1926); however, the work remains unfinished and critical. Education remains essential. Being present remains a must. Speaking truth to power remains necessary. As generations of scholars, educators, and journalists have argued– Black history is American history.
The history and unacknowledged contributions of these enslaved men, women, and children deserve recognition over the 29 days and beyond. This, too, is UA’s history. This history remains important in the ongoing campus conversations over how to reconcile its slave past and complicated racial legacy.
Social media hashtags used for this campaign as well as other Black History Month events, activities, and efforts:
#slaveryua
#BlackHistoryMonth
Specific collections used include: Early Administrative Records, Faculty Minutes, Basil Manly Diaries, Landon Garland Letterbooks, the Corollas (UA yearbooks), and two UA paid subscriptions (Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com). In other words, all readily accessible archival collections contained at the University of Alabama.
Why does Black History Month still matter in 2020? Woodson's original charge of countering the historical propaganda promoted against people of African descent persists as evidenced by the tenor of 1619 Project debates. Woodson, W. E. B. Du Bois, A.A. Taylor, Mertze Tate, Lerone Bennett, Jr., John Hope Franklin, Barbara Fields, Nicole Hannah Jones, and others have responded since the inception of Negro History Week (1926); however, the work remains unfinished and critical. Education remains essential. Being present remains a must. Speaking truth to power remains necessary. As generations of scholars, educators, and journalists have argued– Black history is American history.
The history and unacknowledged contributions of these enslaved men, women, and children deserve recognition over the 29 days and beyond. This, too, is UA’s history. This history remains important in the ongoing campus conversations over how to reconcile its slave past and complicated racial legacy.
Social media hashtags used for this campaign as well as other Black History Month events, activities, and efforts:
#slaveryua
#BlackHistoryMonth
Digital Flyers
The following gallery contains all digital flyers developed for the Black History Month 2020 campaign. A pdf compilation of month-long campaign is available.
Suggested Readings
- W. Fitzhugh Brundage, The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005).
- Jeffrey Aaron Snyder, Making Black History: The Color Line, Culture and Race in the Age of Jim Crow (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018).
- Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, Reclaiming the Black Past: The Use and Misuse of African American history in the Twenty-First Century (London: Verso, 2018).
- Imani Perry, May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018).
- Jeanne Theocharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018).
- E. James West, Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennet Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020).
- The Hallowed Grounds Project’s A Curated Bibliography