Two articles in Thursday's Washington Post contained both archival content and pertinent topics on Black history.
The first article involves a librarian at a local school library here in Rockville. Linda Crichlow White found a collection of photos in the basement of a 91-year old cousin. While the article describes White as being in "full-on librarian mode," she really was in "full-on archivist mode." She has been spending her time going through crumbling photo albums, recognizing family members and realizing she needs to update her family tree.
As is often the case, most of the pictures are unlabeled. She was able to determine the bulk of the photos were taken in Boston around the turn of the century, in the early 1900s. She shared the photos with Aaron Schmidt, who oversees the photo collection at the Boston Public Library, he was stunned. Never before had a private citizen brought such a large collection of photos to the library's attention.
A portion of the collection will go on display Saturday at Zawadi, an African goods retailer here in DC. White is OK with parting with the photos, although she is unsure of the financial value, and remarked, "Most of these people are not my family members. They're in-laws." Schmidt is also negotiating to buy some, if not all, of the collection and bring it to BPL.
White believes the photographer is a great-great-uncle Charles H. Bruce, who she compares to James Van Der Zee, who photographed much of the Harlem Renaissance. White's parting words in the article? "Get older relatives to help you catalogue your pictures."
The second article concerns a project to conduct oral histories with African Americans. The initiative is called the Story Corps Griot Project. The major focus will be on World War II veterans and those involved with the civil rights movement. This project is the largest effort to collect oral histories from African Americans since the Federal Writer's Project in the 1930s.
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