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MARCH 2017
Amistad is committed to collecting, preserving, and providing open access to original materials that 
reference the social and cultural importance of America's ethnic and racial history,
the African Diaspora, human relations, and civil rights.
Amistad Thanks 2016 Donors
Banner year for financial and collections support

The Amistad Research Center would like to thank our 2016 donors who provided financial support during our 50th anniversary year. Individual and corporate support helped expand our public programming, offered increased internship possibilities, provided access and preservation of new and existing collections, and furthered our educational outreach. Donations to our archival and library collections expanded the scope of our already outstanding holdings. Thank you to one and all. 


Amistad Welcomes New Directors
Six join Amistad's Board of Directors

The Amistad Research Center is pleased to welcome six new members to its Board of Directors:
 
Ronald Carrere, Vice President of Development of Real Estate and Commercial Lending Divisions, Liberty Bank & Trust Co.
Linetta Gilbert , Managing Partner, Gilbert & Associates
Jacklyn Monk , Executive Editor, Essence and InStyle Magazines
Byron Stewart , President and Chief Executive Officer, Byron J. Stewart & Associates
Maxim Thorne , Managing Director, The Andrew Goodman Foundation
Theon Wilson , Owner, Law Offices of Theon A. Wilson
 
"The Amistad Research Center's governing board plays an integral role in the growth of its programs and services. The incoming board members' proven leadership, community engagement, and demonstrated skill set will be an invaluable asset to our organization," states Kim Boyle, Amistad's Board Chair.

Dr. Kara T. Olidge, ARC's Executive Director, adds "Each new board member brings a great deal of thought, leadership, energy, and commitment to Amistad, as well as enthusiasm about the possibilities that lie ahead. They all serve from a place of personal awareness and cultural responsibility."

Amistad's full slate of 2017 Board members also includes: Kim Boyle, Esq., Phelps Dunbar LLP. (President & Chair);  Dr. Roseanne Adderley,  Associate Professor, History Department, Tulane University; Dr. Larry Earvin, Vice President, SACSCOC; Dr. Beverly Wade-Hogan, President, Tougaloo College; Dr. Andrea Jefferson, Educator (Ret.); Judge Terri F. Love, Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal; Vivian Lucas, Director, Franklinton Center at Bricks - United Church of Christ; Sybil Morial, Civil Rights Activist and New Orleans' Former First Lady; Dr. Kara Tucina Olidge (ex officio), Executive Director,  Amistad Research Center; Dr. Cora Ann Presley, Associate Professor, Georgia State University; Dr. Lance Query, Former Dean of Libraries and Academic Information Resources, Tulane University; and Ronald L. Wilson,  Attorney at Law, Scheuermann & Jones, L.L.C. (Of Counsel).

Sociologists Preston and Bonita Valien (circa 1950) documented the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Increasing Access to Center Collections
Newly organized collections now available

Amistad's staff has recently completed the archival processing of a number of significant collections. These collections highlight the history of music in New Orleans; the life of author Chester Himes; art and photography; the history of the NAACP, and the southern desegregation boycotts and protests of the 1950s.  Newly available for research are the records of the B Sharp Music Club (1925-1998); the papers of Leslie Himes, wife of author Chester Himes (1934-2008), graphic designer and illustrator Louise Jefferson (1925-2001); industrialist, philanthropist and NAACP President Kivie Kaplan (1955-1975); and sociologists Preston and Bonita Valien (1932-1996). 

Small collections and individual items now open for research include the R.D. Crow Letter (1934), Ida F. Hayden's travel diary (1907), an autobiographical typescript by Robert Hillary King (2000-2001), the records of the Mercantile Agency (1841-1847), the Saga of Shine collection of poems collected by Langston Hughes (circa 1955), and a financial invoice book for general store owners Gabriel and John W. Wells (1812-1836). Finding aids for each of these collections are now available in Amistad's online finding aid database.


Campaign workers for Ernest Morial's Louisiana State Legislature run, 1967.
Blog Series Celebrates New Orleans Women
Series part of NOLA4Women initiative

As part of the Amistad Research Center's partnership with the organization NOLA4Women, we have created a blog series focusing on the contributions of women to New Orleans history. The blog series, titled Divergent Roads: The Historical Paths of Women in New Orleans, debuted in January and will feature a new post every Monday on the Center's blog until April 30, 2017. The profiles of the women will include a short biography of their lives and materials depicting the women from Amistad's collections. Profiles that our staff have written to date are available at the link below. 


Amistad Social Media
Keep up-to-date on Center's news

Are you following Amistad on social media? We share original articles written by our archivists, current news related to our collections, and gems that we find in the archives. You'll be the first to hear about the next event in our Conversations in Color speaker series, and you can follow along with our Nola4Women blog series. Join the conversation! @AmistadResearch on Twitter, Amistad Research Center on Facebook, and amistadresearchcenter on Instagram.

Race Relations Department Digital Resource
Amistad partners with Adam Matthew Digital

The records of the UCBHM Race Relations Department have been digitized and are now available through Adam Matthew Digital, a database vendor that specializes in digitizing historical primary sources. The work of the Department highlights topics such as poverty and inequality, class, housing, employment, education, and government policy. The records can be accessed remotely through libraries who subscribe to the Adam Matthew database and the original documents continue to be accessible to patrons at the Amistad Research Center. A webinar on the history of the records and the digitization process will be held on March 16, 2017. Interested parties can register for the webinar or get an overview of the collection here.

L to R: Bernice L. McFadden and Alexis De Veaux
Conversations in Color
Cultural series focuses on social change

Amistad's Conversations in Color speaker series for 2017 is off to a great start! We had an amazing turnout at our January talk, which featured New York Times columnist Charles Blow in conversation with the Amistad Research Center's Executive Director, Kara Tucina Olidge, to discuss current issues and Blow's book, Fire Shut Up in My Bones. In February, the series continued with Marc Morial, Director of the National Urban League and former two-term mayor of New Orleans, who sat down with Dr. Julianne Malveaux to discuss economic policies in the current political climate. The event drew a fantastic crowd as they outlined the history of federal policies to combat unemployment & poverty and the need for available capital to spur growth in Black-owned businesses. Both events were co-sponsored by Tulane University's Office of Multicultural Affairs.

We are happy to announce the March Conversations in Color, which will feature NAACP Image Award winner & visiting Tulane University professor Bernice L. McFadden in conversation with Alexis De Veaux, 2015 Lambda Literary Best Lesbian Fiction award winner. The March event will take place March 16th at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans. Details and registration are available at the link below.


National Forum on Community Archives
Amistad co-sponsors series of meetings

In July 2016, The Amistad Research Center announced the receipt of a National Leadership Grant from The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for a collaborative project to expand the diversity of the nation's digital memory. The project consists of a series of national meetings that focus on integrating community archives into the National Digital Platform. 

The project partners -- The Amistad Research Center, The Shorefront Legacy Center, The South Asian American Digital Archive, Mukurtu, and The Inland Empire Memories Project of the University of California-Riverside -- have sponsored the first two forums in Los Angeles (October 2016) and New Orleans (January 2017). The next two meetings will take place in Chicago (May 2017) and New York (October 2017). Details on the project can be found at the link below.



International aid worker Harry Edward (upper left) in Vietnam, 1958.
Exhibition Opens on International Travel
On display through April 21, 2017

Amistad's new exhibition, Carnets de voyage: Des Afro-Américains à l'étranger (Travel Diaries: African Americans Abroad), focuses on the international travel experiences of African Americans. This exhibition highlights African American educators, artists, missionaries, activists, soldiers, journalists, and Foreign Service workers, many of whom traveled due to their work, occupations, or leisurely pursuits. The globetrotting experiences of African Americans is seen through their photographs, diaries, notebooks, writings, artwork, and travel memorabilia. Most importantly, the exhibition showcases the various reasons why African Americans traveled to or relocated to foreign locales. Materials within the exhibition date from the end of the 19th century through the 20th century and demonstrate that African Americans placed themselves within a transnational context where they thought and acted on a global scale. The exhibition will be on display at the Amistad Research Center through April 21, 2017. Admission is free. 


New Addition to Staff

Agnes Uboma, Institutional Advancement
Agnes Uboma, Officer of Institutional Advancement, is a talent acquisition and communications professional with particular expertise in executive search. In addition to executive search, Ms. Uboma has supported executive functions in corporate, nonprofit, and consulting arenas, including the design and delivery of programs that foster inclusive environments. She has also worked in communications and public relations in the public arena where her responsibilities included executing social media campaigns and supporting the development and implementation of an organization's succession plans.

Ms. Uboma received a Master's in Public Relations at Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She has served as Chair of Diversity and Inclusion at the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), San Francisco Chapter, and is an alumna of The Op-Ed Project and Fellow of the Women's Global Leadership Institute.

Other Staff News...

Dr. Kara T. Olidge, Executive Director, and Chianta Dorsey, Reference Archivist, participated in Career Day at Young Audiences Charter School in Gretna, Louisiana, on January 26, 2017. Dr. Olidge discussed the importance of archives and how archivists preserve history and documents to groups of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. The children engaged in an activity where they were asked to brainstorm about how they would preserve their most precious items.

Christopher Harter, Director of Library and Reference Services, presented a discussion of Amistad's Comics and Graphic Novels Collection for the Graphic Novels Interest Group at the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) annual meeting in New Orleans on February 5, 2017. The Center was also pleased to host a number of librarians from the ARLIS/NA meeting on a tour of Amistad the next day.

Amistad staff and board members attended the 80th Anniversary Service at Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church in New Orleans. The Center also received additional materials for the church's records at Amistad, as well as a monetary donation.