June 19th, known as Juneteenth, has long been a key African American holiday — a day to commemorate emancipation and freedom from enslavement. The date was first celebrated in Texas, in 1865, to mark the end of slavery after the Civil War. In the RBML, archival documents related to African American freedom reflect the […]
Tag: alexander gumby
Anti-Racist and Black Liberation Archives in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library
The extrajudicial murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which followed the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, and coincided with a global pandemic that has taken disproportionate toll on African Americans, reveals that systemic racism is a life or death matter–for the millions of people who suffer its effects, and for a nation that purports […]
Pride Month and history in the RBML collections
Getting to tell your own story is a gift, but it means that you have to contend with other people’s stories, and I guess that can mean arguing, maybe for 50 years straight. And that’s O.K. – Who Threw the First Brick at Stonewall? Let’s Argue About It The RBML’s archival, manuscript, oral history and […]