Nine Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) students last week completed an almost four-week internship called Cultural Heritage in the Forest (CHIF). It is a collaboration among the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), USDA Forest Service’s Heritage Program, Wayne National Forest in Ohio, and Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. CHIF is a hands-on program for students at HBCUs, training them in cultural resources management, historic preservation, and conservation. The two faculty advisors were Dr. T. DeWayne Moore, of Prairie View A&M University, and Latif Tarik, of Elizabeth City State University.
In this article for Public History Weekly, Mt. Zion Memorial Fund Executive Director T. DeWayne Moore explains how white fragility inhibits the responsible practice of public history in Mississippi blues tourism. Once touted as a force for racial reconciliation, the Mississippi Blues Commission abandoned its original goals under Republican Governor Haley Barbour, excluded African Americans from the decision-making process, and embraced more exclusive public history practices, which promote the erasure of African American history and obscure any connection to contemporary injustice.
The Special Collections & Archives Department at Prairie View A&M University received a $450,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The funds helped establish the Digital PV Panther Project to take deliberate and conscious steps towards what Princeton University digital archivist Jarrett Drake calls “a radically inclusive historical record.” By preserving, processing and promoting research in the archives, the project will begin to eliminate the silences and erasures surrounding the history of PVAMU.
Prairie View A&M University is set to receive a boost that will make more historical documents available to researchers, students and the public. A team consisting of University Archivist Phyllis Earles, Special Collections Librarian Lisa Stafford and History Professor DeWayne Moore, Ph.D., has been awarded two highly competitive grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
Big Road Blues Show 10/4/20
See That My Grave Is Kept Clean – Blues, Restoration & Research with T. DeWayne Moore
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Atlas Obscura – 10-29-2019
The Not-So-Mysterious Missing Grave of Blues Legend Robert Johnson
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The Association of State & Local History – 3-6-2019
Research is Respect: the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund for Cemetery Preservation
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American Blues Scene – 7-24-2017
Mt. Zion Memorial Fund Preserves Delta Legacy One Project At a Time