Arizona State University (ASU) has over 559,300 alumni and has educated thousands more through certificate programs. With the continuous expansion of ASU, thousands more will be educated and have access to the library resources that ASU offers. This means that there has not been a Black Collection in the library to support these 559,300 alumni and the departments they studied under. The absence of a Black Collection makes it an accomplice in subverting the physical or digital, written, audiovisual, and oral materials about Black community, Black thought, and Black experiences in Arizona and the greater Southwest region. The history of teaching scientific racism at universities across the United States has caused people to form radical movements to change libraries and education for everyone. These radical movements that lead to the creation of LIFT gave momentum to Community-Driven Archives (CDA) and the Black Collections. Like all movements, the force of the community is behind them. It is the responsibility of such an enormous entity to continue to develop a Black Collection that supports Black departments and communities.
Many universities public, private, and ivy league (such as Harvard) were responsible for educating their scholars on how to manage plantations worked by enslaved Black people. After slavery’s abolishment, they continued to educate students and researchers on the “legitimacy” of the inferiority of Black people through scientific racism studies, such as eugenics through the 1900s. Scientific racism spread into every discipline from botany and zoology to economics and psychology as an “intellectual” explanation to eliminate people or support the terror raised among them. The regions do not have Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs), required protesting from students, faculty, and the community to have Black Studies, Africana studies, or African American Studies departments to be established in their state in places like UC Berkeley, University of Chicago, and UCLA. The creation of Black Collections at ASU has a similar history of being created through protest. The eruption of outcries about the murders of Black people by the state across the country created a wave of establishing our experiences, history, and present in Arizona. The development of Black studies departments and Black collections don’t only push back against racist rhetoric but acknowledge and uplift the intersectional experienced that Black people have lived.
The importance of a Black Collection at ASU Library shows that WE are here, and we have a history here. It is important that people who live in and affect our community learn about our history and have access to these primary sources. I could go down the list of contributions Black people have made to the area, but contributions to the state are not all that Black Collections showcase. Daily activities and celebrations show us the story of what our lived experience is, and this is valuable. As a function of the Community-Driven Archives, input, and support from the community we showcase is vital to its success and longevity. There is a distinct Black experience, and institutions should accommodate that. A collection of this history demonstrates the diversity within this Black experience from people across the diaspora and among different regions. I have been fortunate to be part of outreach meetings and partnerships between Black Collections, community members that want to support its growth and how we can support existing organizations. As ASU is one of the major institutions in the state, having a curated Black Collection at the library meets our mission of supporting community and research in the Southwest accurately.
By Rashida Scott Blades