Documenting the Black experience in the Americas and Caribbean
The University of Texas (UT) is excited to announce the formal addition of the UT Black Studies Archive to the Black Diaspora Archive held at the Benson Latin American Collection.
Continue reading “Collection Spotlight: UT Black Studies Archive”
In honor of the Benson Latin American Collection’s centennial, the University of Texas Libraries celebrates the Black Diaspora Archive.
Additional highlights can be seen on the Tex Libris blog post, Restoring a Neglected History: The Black Diaspora Archive.
A historical archive project that traces the routes of Texas’ domestic slave trade has received a grant of $119,326 over two years to expand its digital presence. The Texas Domestic Slave Trade (TXDST) project was founded by Daina Ramey Berry, Chair of UT Austin’s Department of History, and Rachel E. Winston, Black Diaspora Archivist at UT Libraries. The TXDST project manager is Sheena Moore, a senior administrative associate in the Department of History. The grant is funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), which is a collaboration between the Mellon Foundation and the National Archives that aims to expand cultural diversity in American history.
More information can be found in announcements by the College of Liberal Arts Public Affairs and the Department of History.
An overview of the three-part BDA blog series Curating an Oral History of Alpha Kappa Alpha by Briana Marie Davis (Class of 2021) has been featured on Tex Libris, and can be read here.
Oral history interviews from the Shankleville Community Oral History Collection are now available online!
Continue reading “Shankleville Community Oral History Interviews Now Online”
A scholar and statesman, the Honorable Dr. Eric Eustace Williams (1911-1981) led Trinidad and Tobago for over a quarter of a century. He oversaw the country’s independence from Britain in 1962 and 1976 transition to a Republic. Williams served as Prime Minister until his death in 1981.
In April 2021, the Eric Williams Memorial Lecture (EWML) moved from Florida International University to its new home at the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. To mark the occasion, the BDA collaborated with the Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives & Museum at The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago, and the staff of the Alma Jordan Library at The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago to create the online exhibition, Celebrating Eric Williams.
As the 2019-2020 AKA Scholars Black Diaspora Archive Intern, Zaria El-Fil curated an exhibition documenting Black student activism on UT’s campus in the 1970s. Campus closure due to COVID-19 prevented the exhibition from happening, but you can read more about Zaria’s research and experience using the John L. Warfield Papers in the 2019-2020 issue of Portal: Web Magazine of LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collection found here.
Rachel E. Winston, Black Diaspora Archivist, was interviewed by Life & Letters magazine about Juneteenth. Read the full article here.
Fall of 2019 was busy for the BDA! With the contributions of UT Libraries staff, the AKA Scholars Black Diaspora Archive Intern, and Archival Enterprise I students from the UT iSchool, three collections were processed:
During the 2019-2020 academic year, Black Studies will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies. As a part of the celebration, items from the John L. Warfield Papers can be seen here.