Un-Boxing Hidden HBCU Collections: Revealing the Historical Legacies of HBCUs
The Un-Boxing Hidden HBCU Collections twenty-four month project seeks to digitize and improve discoverability and access to the cultural heritage of HBCUs, providing insight into their impacts on local communities, African-American communities and national higher education community. The HBCU collections proposed for digitization span from 1724 to 2014, document leadership, scholarship, community service and history through photos, slave ship manifests, presidential letters, speeches and papers (especially of the Civil Rights Movement and World War II era), audiovisual recordings, and research documentation regarding African-American life. The Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library, Bethune-Cookman University, Johnson C. Smith University, Lincoln University Missouri, Mississippi Valley State University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Savannah State University and Xavier University will contribute materials to this collaborative project through the HBCU Library Alliance, creating standard processes that integrate best practices among participants and using a collaborative portal for public access within the context of existing HBCU digital collections.