In my Social Justice ePortfolio (SJ-eP) I analyze existing diversity and inclusion responses to Black Women Artists, Cultural Workers, Organizers and their communities at Build Your Archive located in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Greater Metro Atlanta as part of CIS 668 (Social Justice and Inclusion Advocacy) course during fall 2023. On this page, I provide an environmental scan of similar projects, information organizations and spaces that I am looking to for guidance.
The Diaspora Solidarities Lab
Website: https://www.dslprojects.org
Offering: Rememory Labs
About: The Diaspora Solidarities Lab (DSL) is a multi-institutional Black feminist partnership that supports solidarity work in Black and Ethnic Studies conducted by undergraduates, graduate students, faculty members, and community partners who are committed to transformative justice and accountable to communities beyond the Western academy. We sponsor both traditional analog and digital experimental scholarship to build knowledge communities across institutions and geographies, training participants in the practices and principles of radical media, ethics of Black feminist praxis, and decolonial and antiracist principles. We emphasize the literacies of the born-digital and in-person ethical collaboration.
Black Women's Organizing Archive
Website: https://bwoaproject.org
Offerings: Digitization Project focused on Black Women Organizers
About: Four women ground the initial phrases of the project—Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Anna Julia Cooper and Mary Church Terrell. Each of these women represents a critical moment in the history of Black women’s organizing and as we delve deeper into their archives, we learn more about the vast collectives of Black men and women of which these women were apart: Mary Ann Shadd Cary—the first Black woman newspaper editor in North America and one of the only Black women delegates to the 1855 Colored Convention; Frances Ellen Watkins Harper—abolitionist, suffragist, teacher, writer, acclaimed poet, activist and mentor; Anna Julia Cooper—author of the first book-length statement of Black feminist thought and an intellectual architect of the movement for Black women-led national organizations; and Mary Church Terrell—the first president of the longest standing Black civic organization, the National Association of Colored Women. These four women represent a collective will to step into the forefront with their own national organizations and to assert their voices, perspectives, and organizational might into the collective struggle for Black freedom and civil rights.
Offerings: Online archive of activist organizing in solidarity with African struggles
About: The African Activist Archive Project is building an online archive of primary materials - documents, photographs, artifacts, and written and oral memories - of 50 years of activist organizing in the United States in solidarity with African struggles against colonialism, apartheid, and injustice. This is a "people's archive" focused primarily on local organizations in the U.S. that supported African struggles against colonialism and white minority rule. We also include materials from national organizations that provided research, educational and organizing materials, and some reporting about these local community and campus groups.
