Zha'Mauri Howard

About Zha'Mauri Howard

Posts by Zha'Mauri Howard:

0

How Does Politics Effect Public History?

Politics in Public History

I think that there is no way to separate the fields of politics and public history. One of the key aspects of public history is community engagement, learning the people’s stories, understanding their plights and what they want to tell. Those stories and those people’s lives are political. Two people could tell widely different stories of the same event depending on their perceptions of what it is. The inclusion or exclusion of certain elements in a story reflect those perceptions.

From the text by Faith Davis Ruffins, we get a tale about African American museums. We learn about the history of these museums and how they came to be. How there was so much fight to get these places built despite America systematically making it difficult for these projects to flourish. In the book it says, “These men and women grew up in segregated circumstances, whether in southern towns or northern urban neighborhoods. These men and women were nurtured by historically Black institutions… Above all, these men and women all shared in common deep exposure and dedication to the ‘Negro Canon.’” (pg. 28-29). Doing work in the field of  Public history will require that a person engage with marginalized people to hear those untold stories of segregation, the plight of the reservation, etc.

Another example from a chapter in the book Radical Roots by Lara Kelland. In the chapter the author speaks about the creation of Indigenous American Colleges and the rise of LGBTQ+ activism after the Stonewall riots. I’d like to focus on the latter, in this quote the author says, “Although many LGBTQ researchers began to develop LGBTQ historiography as they learned to work within existing mainstream repositories, other activists began to cultivate separatist organizations, providing community-controlled archival spaces for those seeking to learn more about queer history.” (Pg 508). The interesting thing about this quote is that the LGBTQ researchers had to exist and work within an existing mainstream. The mainstream excludes certain narratives even when those people with those narratives advocate for themselves. The exclusions are inherently political. There is no separation between the people and the politics that govern their lives.

Two people on a computer
, ,

Technology in MY HISTORY????

Business people using computer in office - Stock Photo - Dissolve

The role of technology in the production of public history is accessibility. A big question in any research is how to disseminate it to others. One of the things the field of history tries to do is, “the attempt to leverage knowledge on behalf of social change”[1]. How would you enact social change without any community outreach? The answer is you won’t be able to. What technology allows for is that connection to people all over the world to educate themselves on the issue at hand. Professional public historians place their specialized knowledge onto the web and people can learn more easily via the graphics and other engaging material placed on the website.

Using technology is more malleable than a static location. As long as the historians understand how to use the technology, which takes time, skill, and money to figure out. With continual updates and backups saved, a website can be live for however long the internet will exist for. One example that I’d like to highlight is the International Commission to Combat Religious Racism’s Brazil section on their website. It provides a 56-page report about religious intolerance in Brazil, 500 cases of religious, and 2 interactive maps that show where, when, and what types of intolerance that occurred. It is very user friendly and is updated annually. Making this type of information public and accessible in this way allows for an American, like me, to get a clearer picture of what’s going on in Brazil and why it may be that way.

[1] Hurley, Andrew. “Chasing the Frontiers of Digital Technology.”  The Public Historian, no.1, (2016): pg.70

Black Librarian Royalty free Stock photo
, , , ,

What is the role of Archivists?

The Purpose of Archivists

Archivists play one of, if not the most important parts when it comes to preserving history. The archives are where historians run to in order to find material for their books, studies, etc. Archives are defined as , “… the official or organized records of governments, public and private institutions and organizations, groups of people and individuals, whatever their date, form and material appearance, which are no longer needed to conduct current business, but are preserved, either as evidence of origins, structures, functions, and activities or because of the value of the information they contain, whether or not they have been transferred to an archival institution.”[1].  I chose this long definition because I believe it encapsulates all that archives are, especially the later half. These archives may not be relevant to modern doings of a given institution, but the ability to reach back into the history of one is important. Reaching into the past in order to build upon the present is an important practice that everyday people should employ, but so should our institutions that control us.

With the importance of archives being stated, what is or is not inside of the archives is just as important. Our society is based on white supremacy and that seeps into every institution just as much as it seeps into our day-to-day social interactions. This is because these institutions are run by a mostly white population that historically are not penalized if they don’t check their biases and assumptions. Leading to only white stories being told from their perspectives. And on the other end, we have an underwhelming amount of BIPOC and Queer records that tell their story from their perspectives. This was not done by accident.

The erasure of American history was not done by accident. Americas foundation was based upon exploitation and oppression. A depressing foundation that if taught and shown, would change people’s perception of society radically. In this source about Black bibliophiles it says, “Another reason the bibliophiles collected books was to correct the record of American history, to rescue… ‘the missing pages of history’…”[2]. There is a whole history of Black people having to archive their own history because the dominant institutions didn’t consider it worthwhile. They would throw it away because it didn’t fit narratives of a great white race or that negroes were dumb.

And that is the power of archives. It needs to represent the total population, so that when we reach back to build upon the present, we get the whole story.

 

[1] Greene, Mark A. “The Power of Meaning: The Archival Mission in the Postmodern Age.” The American Archivist 65, no. 1 (2002): 42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40294188.
ENDNOTE IN TURABIAN – Mark A. Greene, “The Power of Meaning: The Archival Mission in the Postmodern Age,” The American Archivist 65:1 (2002): 42.
[2] Tony Martin, “Bibliophiles, Activists, and Race Men” in Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History. Elinor Des Verney Sinnette and W, Paul Coates and Thomas C. Battle (Howard University Press, 1990), 23-34.

A group of Black peop

What is shared authority? How does it impact historical research, scholarship, and exhibition?

ALLOWING THE VIEWER TO LEAD THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE?

What Is Shared Authority

Shared Authority is the idea that as a professional, a person has the power in the situation to dictate what is included or not included within a specific exhibit, but allowing the people who are the subject of or who will be viewing the exhibit will enhance the experience overall. 

This is because the exhibit is for the audience and their engagement. It’s the “public” part of public history. It’s allowing the research to guide study rather than forcing the research to reach a conclusion that you want to see. 

download

Who We Are

Content here, content here\’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for \’lorem ipsum\’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod empor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam,quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Comment Below for Any Questions or Conserns.

An older, white man sitting in his office
, ,

what is public history

What Is Public History & My Thoughts on the Article.

The article, Public History: Its Origins, Nature, and Prospects by Robert Kelly, discusses what the field of Public History is, its prospects, and about a program of Public History that the author teaches to graduate and doctoral students. Upon completing the reading, it swayed me into seeing the importance of a public historian and the possible increase in the field as more public historians are needed in different spaces. 

Public history according to the article is, “In its simplest meaning, Public History refers to the employment of historians and the historical method outside of academia”[1]. A self-explanatory definition, but there is more to the field and how important it could be. Public historians will be working in those corporations, government offices, or communities to aid them in making better decisions for themselves.

 One thing I found most interesting about the article was the section about the Public Historical Studies Program. I like how the program allows them to work together and gain the skills they need through experience. They also come out of the program with a body of work that certifies their skills, and that is very attractive to future employers. The fact that the students after the program then all went off to do different things, but still using the skills from the field is something I like to see. 

Public history is the use of skills in the field of history applied to whatever context the historian works in. The professor of this course provided a good example of himself. He came to PV and started working in the cemetery. He had to speak to descendants of those buried, the heads of the university, and other collaborators to do the cemetery justice.

[1] Kelly, Robert. “Public History: Its Origins, Nature, and Prospects.” The Public Historian 1, no.1 (1978): 16

A picture taken of Robert Kelly, found on the website of the National Council of Public History

A picture of Robert Kelly

A picture taken of Robert Kelly, found on the website of the National Council of Public History