[Music]
so how would you feel if your entire
cultural identity was erased right if I
or someone other than yourself decided
that you just weren’t important enough
to be written down or if your history
was written down then that record would
then wasn’t kept or if that record was
written down and that record was kept
someone to subsequently decided to go
back and describe your history not in
the way that you would but rather in
their perspective of you so in any of
these cases the question that I’m asking
is if your history is it recorded and
preserved well did you exist well yes of
course I existed of course I’ve mattered
my identity my personhood on this planet
means something unfortunately that is
not in fact the case
you see history is not just everything
now backwards right that is something
that we call the past and history is
also not just a catalog of events put
into the right order history is in fact
a series of strategically curated
decisions right decisions that have the
ability to either uplift some or silence
others and those choices those decisions
are made by people like myself people
like archivists librarians scholars
researchers but regardless they are
still decisions and herein lies the the
the impact the power of bias and
privilege with the ability to create
entire silenced landscapes of people
groups entirely based on the decision of
either being included or excluded from
history making
so what ends up happening is that we
implicitly trust the evidence that we
find in an archive right we see letters
or photographs in these archives as the
closest thing to actually being there
but we tend to overlook the bias
decision-making practices of the
archivist or of the history gatekeeper
about what you found in that archive and
what you didn’t so we look at these
letters and photographs and we think
about well whose letters did I find but
whose letters will I never find and what
was the position or the person or the
perspective of the individual letters
that I found and whose perspective and
positions will I never find I feel like
it’s it’s it’s quite unfathomable to to
understand the 99.99999%
first-person experience that will never
be remembered that has been purposefully
oppressed suppressed or buried from
history in so in its simplest terms the
the inclusion or exclusion of documents
or or of things from history making is
an assertion of power right and and that
and such has been the case of African
American history in this country and so
if you were interested in in better
understanding or having evidence of
African American culture in this country
you might look at the Charles teenie
Harris archive so Charles teenie Harris
was a photographer for the Pittsburgh
courier one of the most influential
black newspapers of the 20th century and
and and he worked in photographing the
everyday lives of African Americans here
in this community as well as the
everyday celebrities such as as the the
Duke Ellington’s the Muhammad Ali’s the
Martin Luther King’s of the world he
photographed all of these individuals as
they were coming in and out of
Pittsburgh but he’s probably most famous
for photographing the hill district
during the height of the Jazz era and so
at this time
you’re gonna have a lot of artists such
as Billy Eckstine and Billy Strayhorn
Duke Ellington Lena Horne Nina Simone
Mary Lou Williams Eric garner the list
truly goes on and on and on of artists
coming in and out of Pittsburgh being
photographed by teenie Harris but now
looking back we might ask well what
happened to the Hill District well one
way to create these silence landscapes
that I mentioned earlier is to use the
the tool I guess of urban renewal to
physically create silenced landscapes so
in the case of the hill district here in
Pittsburgh the entire lower half of that
neighborhood was destroyed in order to
build the Civic Arena which was then
destroyed but now looking back the only
evidence that we have of this of this
cultural icon of this thriving community
is in individuals memories and
thankfully captured visually in the
teenie Harris photographs so as an
archivist we you as the teenie Harris
archivist ik we are trying to break down
some of those traditionally held
archival practices by actually trying to
uplift a people’s voice in a people’s
history now we do this by actually
asking the community how they would like
to be remembered and then recording
those stories according to their own
standards and vocabularies because we
believe above all else that the
collective power of memory has the
ability to propel life forward into
contemporary relevance we understand
that the beliefs and the ideas held in
common by many individuals have the
ability to create solidarity and
community so as an archivist one of the
things that I am trying to do in order
to break down these these traditionally
held practices by better understanding
archival theory such as
election appraisal appraisal and
description is to create these new forms
of archival theory that include racially
conscious and culturally competent
practices so racially conscious
culturally competent archival theory
seeks to apply as many if not all of
these attributes as possible when
recording the history of a people group
because we understand that if we
continue to ignore how bias and
privilege create large gaps in history
making we will continue to have
histories that look the same way that
they do now
so archivists as an archivist I am
striving every day towards the
upliftment of a people and of a voice
because I truly believe that when
marginalized and under documented
individuals and groups are actually able
to champion for themselves their
property and their culture maybe maybe
then we can feel more assured that we
are actually building a history that is
reflective and inclusive of all of us by
heating the voices of those who have
been traditionally silenced by
you [Music]
so how would you feel if your entire
cultural identity was erased right if I
or someone other than yourself decided
that you just weren’t important enough
to be written down or if your history
was written down then that record would
then wasn’t kept or if that record was
written down and that record was kept
someone to subsequently decided to go
back and describe your history not in
the way that you would but rather in
their perspective of you so in any of
these cases the question that I’m asking
is if your history is it recorded and
preserved well did you exist well yes of
course I existed of course I’ve mattered
my identity my personhood on this planet
means something unfortunately that is
not in fact the case
you see history is not just everything
now backwards right that is something
that we call the past and history is
also not just a catalog of events put
into the right order history is in fact
a series of strategically curated
decisions right decisions that have the
ability to either uplift some or silence
others and those choices those decisions
are made by people like myself people
like archivists librarians scholars
researchers but regardless they are
still decisions and herein lies the the
the impact the power of bias and
privilege with the ability to create
entire silenced landscapes of people
groups entirely based on the decision of
either being included or excluded from
history making
so what ends up happening is that we
implicitly trust the evidence that we
find in an archive right we see letters
or photographs in these archives as the
closest thing to actually being there
but we tend to overlook the bias
decision-making practices of the
archivist or of the history gatekeeper
about what you found in that archive and
what you didn’t so we look at these
letters and photographs and we think
about well whose letters did I find but
whose letters will I never find and what
was the position or the person or the
perspective of the individual letters
that I found and whose perspective and
positions will I never find I feel like
it’s it’s it’s quite unfathomable to to
understand the 99.99999%
first-person experience that will never
be remembered that has been purposefully
oppressed suppressed or buried from
history in so in its simplest terms the
the inclusion or exclusion of documents
or or of things from history making is
an assertion of power right and and that
and such has been the case of African
American history in this country and so
if you were interested in in better
understanding or having evidence of
African American culture in this country
you might look at the Charles teenie
Harris archive so Charles teenie Harris
was a photographer for the Pittsburgh
courier one of the most influential
black newspapers of the 20th century and
and and he worked in photographing the
everyday lives of African Americans here
in this community as well as the
everyday celebrities such as as the the
Duke Ellington’s the Muhammad Ali’s the
Martin Luther King’s of the world he
photographed all of these individuals as
they were coming in and out of
Pittsburgh but he’s probably most famous
for photographing the hill district
during the height of the Jazz era and so
at this time
you’re gonna have a lot of artists such
as Billy Eckstine and Billy Strayhorn
Duke Ellington Lena Horne Nina Simone
Mary Lou Williams Eric garner the list
truly goes on and on and on of artists
coming in and out of Pittsburgh being
photographed by teenie Harris but now
looking back we might ask well what
happened to the Hill District well one
way to create these silence landscapes
that I mentioned earlier is to use the
the tool I guess of urban renewal to
physically create silenced landscapes so
in the case of the hill district here in
Pittsburgh the entire lower half of that
neighborhood was destroyed in order to
build the Civic Arena which was then
destroyed but now looking back the only
evidence that we have of this of this
cultural icon of this thriving community
is in individuals memories and
thankfully captured visually in the
teenie Harris photographs so as an
archivist we you as the teenie Harris
archivist ik we are trying to break down
some of those traditionally held
archival practices by actually trying to
uplift a people’s voice in a people’s
history now we do this by actually
asking the community how they would like
to be remembered and then recording
those stories according to their own
standards and vocabularies because we
believe above all else that the
collective power of memory has the
ability to propel life forward into
contemporary relevance we understand
that the beliefs and the ideas held in
common by many individuals have the
ability to create solidarity and
community so as an archivist one of the
things that I am trying to do in order
to break down these these traditionally
held practices by better understanding
archival theory such as
election appraisal appraisal and
description is to create these new forms
of archival theory that include racially
conscious and culturally competent
practices so racially conscious
culturally competent archival theory
seeks to apply as many if not all of
these attributes as possible when
recording the history of a people group
because we understand that if we
continue to ignore how bias and
privilege create large gaps in history
making we will continue to have
histories that look the same way that
they do now
so archivists as an archivist I am
striving every day towards the
upliftment of a people and of a voice
because I truly believe that when
marginalized and under documented
individuals and groups are actually able
to champion for themselves their
property and their culture maybe maybe
then we can feel more assured that we
are actually building a history that is
reflective and inclusive of all of us by
heating the voices of those who have
been traditionally silenced by
you [Music]
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