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 resources that I utilize in my work for Build Your Archive as well as share throughout community.
Black Women Writers Project
The black women writers project was founded by Keondra Bills Freeman, an alumna of Fordham University (B.S.) and Columbia University (M.P.A.) and is a Society of American Archivists Digital Archives Specialist.
From the website the mission states, "The Black Women Writers Project uplifts and celebrates the contributions and legacies of Black women and gender expansive writers by improving visibility of institution-based, community, and personal archival materials. BWWP focuses on increasing the amount of well-sourced, reliable, and freely accessible information about Black women writers in digital spaces."
It is composed of three sections: an archive finder, wikipedia editing and a blog titled "From The Archive" The archive finder is simply a page that provides the names of Black Women Writers across the African Diaspora from bell hooks to Margaret Walker. Each profile of the writer provides short bios and links to the finding aids at the respective institutions or repositories as well as other digital resources.
Since my project in the initially phases will require me to build a database of the text written by Black Women Writers, it will be useful to also know where their archives are currently held. It is not my aim to try to re-create this database but to provide an text analysis of primary resources that would be represented in their archives.
Black Women Radicals
Website: https://www.blackwomenradicals.com
Black Women Radicals, a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting and centering Black women and gender expansive people's radical activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora. It was founded by Jaimee Swift who is also the creator and founder of The School for Black Feminist Politics (SBFP), the Black feminist political education arm of Black Women Radicals.
Beyond it providing a database of profiles and bios of Black Women Radicals and Organizers, they operate as a collective whose purpose is "to disrupt this erasure by uplifting and educating on and about Black women and gender expansive people’s political activism on the African continent and in the African Diaspora."
Black Women Radicals provides multiple examples on how to activate the information they are engaging with through events, blogs and reading list. As a resource for my project, I believe that it can be used locate additional relationships between Black Women Writers, Artists, Cultural Workers and Organizers.
