Abstract
This case study invites archivists to broaden our understanding of what constitutes a community archive using the Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project as its focus. The oral history project captured the experiences of Black elders in Western North Carolina in the 1980s and provides a unique insight into a Black community in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The leaders and participants wanted this project to increase Black representation in Appalachian history and intended the materials be distributed widely. However, university staff kept the collection closed for almost forty years, and it was only opened in 2018. Fitting definitions, goals, and challenges of current community archives project, this legacy collection benefited from empathetic stewardship by listening to the ghosts in the collection – the project creators, interviewees, and others excluded from the historical record – and by challenging the opinions and actions of former university staff. As the archival profession wrestles with legacies of institutional harm, using a broader definition of community archives allows archivists at organizations not currently engaged or unable to engage in traditional community archiving to join a larger movement of empathetic archival work. By identifying collections that were removed and withheld from their communities or otherwise treated without proper respect and care, we can continue to acknowledge and remedy institutional harm and oppression.
Recommended Citation
Harper, Elizabeth
(2024)
"Listening to Ghosts in the Appalachian Mountains: The Western North Carolina Tomorrow's Black Oral History Project as a Community Archive,"
Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies: Vol. 11, Article 7.
Available at:
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol11/iss1/7
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