Collins Unbound

Black Freedom Struggle is an open access collection of selective primary source documents covering the ongoing fight for equal rights.

The collection includes approximately 1,600 documents from six phases of the struggle to obtain Black freedom:

1. Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
2. The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
3. Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
4. The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
5. The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
6. The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)

The resource is especially rich in legislative sources. For example, documents related to Policing and Protests in the Contemporary Era include the Congressional hearing document, Policing Strategies for the 21^st Century; the text of 116 H. Res 1007 calling for justice for George Floyd and opposing efforts to defund the police; and Representative Barbara Lee’s comments to the House of Representatives in 2020 on the police killing of Breonna Taylor.

Justice for Breonna Taylor
“401 years of white supremacy and oppression have rotted our criminal justice system. If there is any doubt that systemic racism exists, look to this decision [to indict only one of the three officers involved in the shooting of Breonna Taylor]”.

The website draws documents from a number of ProQuest databases including American Periodical; Black Abolitionist Papers; ProQuest History Vault; ProQuest Congressional; and Alexander Street’s Black Thought and Culture, to which Collins Memorial Library subscribes.

Although the collection is not exhaustive, it is a valuable tool, affording students the opportunity to examine primary source materials to enhance their understanding of African Americans’ struggles to obtain freedom and equality in the United States.

The Collins Memorial Library recently purchased the ebook, Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice. According to the book’s description,

After a powerful webinar that included educators from ten cities explaining the many incredible actions they took in support of the national Black Lives Matter at School week of action, Denisha Jones contacted Jesse Hagopian to propose that they collect these stories in a book. Black Lives Matter at School succinctly generalizes lessons from successful challenges to institutional racism that have been won through the BLM at School movement. This is a book that can inspire many hundreds or thousands of more educators to join the BLM at School movement.

Black Lives Matter at School is a national coalition organizing for racial justice in education. It began in Seattle when John Muir Elementary School educators announced that they would wear Black Lives Matter t-shirts to work. In response, they received a bomb threat from white supremacists. In solidarity, thousands of educators came to school on October 19th wearing shirts that said, “Black Lives Matter: We Stand Together,” along with hundreds of families and students.

In the years since, schools across the country have participated in Weeks of Action, holding events for both schools and their communities. The Coalition offers a Starter Kit with resources for schools to host their first Week of Action as well as curriculum materials for every age group free of charge. Additionally, the educators in the BLM at School movement have develop a list of demands for the movement:

1. End “zero tolerance” discipline, and implement restorative justice
2. Hire more black teachers
3. Mandate Black history and ethnic studies in K-12 curriculum
4. Fund counselors not cops

In the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and others named and unnamed, Black Lives Matter at School launched a new initiative, the Year of Purpose, encouraging educators, students, and parents to participate in ongoing activations and reflection throughout the 2020-2021 school year. Events included Justice for George Day on October 14; Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20; and International People’s with Disabilities Day in December. Events in 2021 include Queer Organizing Behind the Scenes, Unapologetically Black Day, Student Activist Day, and #SayHerName Day.

Denisha Jones is a member of the national Black Lives Matter at School steering committee and Director of the Art of Teaching, the graduate teacher education program at Sarah Lawrence College; and her co-writer, Jesse Hagopian, teaches high school ethnic studies in Seattle and is on the Black Lives Matter at School steering committee.

For more information, see Black Lives Matter at School.

Collins Memorial Library’s inaugural post celebrating Black History Month takes a look at artist Alisa Banks and her book, Wrongful Termination, which is part of the artists’ book collection in Special Collections N7433.4.B36 A48 2019.

According to Anne Evenhaugen at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives:

An artist’s book is a medium of artistic expression that uses the form or function of “book” as inspiration. It is the artistic initiative seen in the illustration, choice of materials, creation process, layout and design that makes it an art object.

What truly makes an artist’s book is the artist’s intent. Artists have used the book as inspiration in a myriad of ways and techniques, from traditional to the experimental. The book can be made through fine press printing or hand-crafted, with pages illustrated by computer-generated images or cheap photocopies. Books can become sculptures, tiny and gargantuan; books can be sliced up and reconfigured, made from all kinds of materials with unconventional objects incorporated, in unique or limited editions, or produced in multiple copies. With all sorts of ideas behind them, artists continue to challenge the idea, content and structure of the traditional book. (https://blog.library.si.edu/blog/2012/06/01/what-is-an-artists-book/#.YBmYOOhKiUk)

Wrongful Termination addresses race-based discriminatory practices. Starting in the 1980’s, multiple suits have been filed against employers, schools, and other agencies by people of color (primarily women) who were fired, passed over for promotion or hiring, or sent home for wearing their natural hair. Wrongful features two original poems and collaged texts from newspaper editorials.

Banks uses an altered law book by Lionel J. Postic as her primary structure. The volume is hollowed out to contain four paper scrolls affixed by plastic hair rollers over a base of black, synthetic hair. A four-page accordion fold insert is affixed to the front-end page. It includes two original poems and texts from newspaper editorials. Alisa told Collins Library staff in an online forum that Wrongful Termination was conceived of as a companion piece to Bad Hair, another of her books which features synthetic hair and features snips of editorials and quotes relating to women who have brought suit for being terminated by their employers because they wore “natural” hairstyles to work.

Alisa Banks is a visual artist who creates sculptural books, textile collage, and multi-media work to address identity politics; she frequently incorporates fibers and found materials that reference traditional craft techniques. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, Europe, Asia, and throughout the US, and is housed in several private and public collections, including the Smithsonian Institution, the US Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center.

Alisa received her BS in Medical Technology from Oklahoma State University and her MFA in Art from Texas Woman’s University. She lives in Dallas, TX. Images from:  https://www.alisabanks.com

Additional Resources:

• https://www.textileartist.org/alisa-banks-textile-stories-pieced-together/
  
• http://voyagedallas.com/interview/meet-alisa-banks-alisa-banks-art-southwest/
  
• http://abecedariangallery.com/store/reviews/2012/12/14/alisa-banks-the-edge-series/
  
• http://www.vampandtramp.com/finepress/b/A-Bee-Press.html