Council Fellow Builds Online Archives in African American History

April 2, 2020
From left, the Humanities Council's Perkins Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities Jim Casey and CDH University Administrative Fellows Elena M'Bouroukounda and Julia Grummitt on Princeton's Douglass Day. Born into slavery, Frederick Douglass did not know his birthday, so he chose February 14 to celebrate.

This week, The Center for Digital Humanities announced the completion of the transcribe-a-thon of the papers of Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964), a celebrated author, educator and activist who, while in her sixties, became the fourth African American woman to earn a doctoral degree.

The project began at the annual “Douglass Day” events on February 14, the chosen birthday of writer and activist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895). Conceived in 2017 by Jim Casey, the Humanities Council’s Perkins Fellow in the Center for Digital Humanities, with collaborators from the Colored Conventions Project, Douglass Day celebrates Black History Month with a digital and participatory twist, offering a space to reflect on the past and to preserve Black history though active participation.

In the four-year history of Douglass Day, nearly 5000 people at 240 locations have participated.

Read the full story on the CDH homepage.

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