ArchivesSpace Diversity Partnership

In the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor murders, and in the spirit of protest that followed, the ArchivesSpace community began a conversation about what it could do to promote diversity and inclusion while combating systemic racism in our field. That continuing conversation has led to a series of initiatives that we will undertake in the coming years, including the ArchivesSpace Diversity Partnership.

The ArchivesSpace Diversity Partnership offers support for implementing the ArchivesSpace application to institutions that are themselves or primarily serve communities underrepresented in the ArchivesSpace community. Each participating institution is eligible for resources like membership, hosting, training, and user and technical support. This program launched with a small cohort of institutions for a three-year term beginning on July 1, 2021, and concluding on June 30, 2024.

Our Inaugural Cohort (July 1, 2021-June 30, 2024)

Black Cultural Archives – a unique community archive based in the heart of Brixton, South London, that was established in 1981 to collect contemporary records of Black communities and seeks to transform the understanding of local, national and global Black history.

Detroit Sound Conservancy – deliberately rooted in and informed by Detroit’s community activism, a community-based archive that tells Detroit’s story through the experiences of its musical people.

Spelman College – a liberal arts college in Atlanta that is one of the only two remaining HBCUs founded to educate women of the African diaspora. In addition to being the official college repository, the Archives also documents women of the African Diaspora broadly, and houses the Audre Lorde and Toni Cade Bambara papers.

Weeksville Heritage Center – a historic site, house museum, and cultural center in Brooklyn, New York, whose mission is to use education, the arts and a social justice lens to preserve, document and inspire engagement with the history of Weeksville, one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America.

Xavier University of Louisiana – the only Catholic HBCU in the country, with historic collections that focus on Black history, New Orleans and Louisiana history, Black Catholics, and the Gulf Coast region, in addition to XULA institutional history.

Our New Cohort (July 1, 2024-June 30, 2027)

Cherokee National Research Center – based in the tribe’s capital city of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the research center serves as the official repository for the Cherokee Nation, the largest federally-recognized Native American tribe in the United States. The state-of-the-art facility is home to the tribe’s collection of historic documents and cultural artifacts from the 1700s through present day.

CUNY Haitian Studies Institute – an academic unit within the City University of New York with a threefold mission to contribute to knowledge about Haitians and the Haitian Diaspora, facilitate a community of collaboration among scholars and learners of all ages conducting research or serving the Haitian community and community-based organizations, and engage in analysis and research practices to better understand policy and programs directed at Haiti and the Haitian community.

Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe – based in Massachusetts, the mission of the tribe’s archives is to collect, preserve, and make accessible the material culture and historical record of the Wampanoag people and illuminate the long history of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, their rich indigenous culture, and the historical significance of their persistent survival in the face of centuries of contact and conquest.

Soomaal House of Art - a Minnesota-based Somali artist collective and arts organization whose mission is to document and preserve contemporary Somali art, the lived experiences of Somali Minnesotans, and the historical archive of Somalia and Somalis.

Texas Southern University – one of the nation’s largest historically black universities, with the Traditional African Art Gallery, the Charles F. Heartman Collection, Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland Archives and other special collections that are related to the black experience in the United States and the world, the history of the university, and the City of Houston. 

We’re really excited to work with our cohort members in the coming months and years. We’ll provide more information about the program as this work proceeds.

Hosting for the ArchivesSpace Diversity Partners is being generously provided by our Registered Service Providers Atlas Systems and Lyrasis.