National Day of Racial Healing 2022: SAA Resources

SAA offers a host of resources related to racial healing in archives for the National Day of Racial Healing on January 18, 2022. Find practical examples and recommendations in podcast interviews, magazine and journal articles, leadership reports, and continuing education opportunities. If relevant, share these resources with your colleagues, on your websites, and in your email newsletters. We hope this list, in addition to resources for a Healing Hour, sparks your thinking and community discussion and we encourage you to expand upon it. Be sure to promote your efforts on social media, using the hashtags #LibrariesAndArchivesForRacialHealing and #HowWeHeal. 

Leadership Resources

• SAA Workplan on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
• SAA Diversity Committee: Feedback and Recommendations Following Black Lives and Archives Forums
• SAA Community Reflection on Black Lives and Archives

Archives in Context Podcast

(also available on Spotify and Apple podcasts)

• Petrina Jackson, director of the Special Collections Research Center, Bird Library, Syracuse University; and Verónica Reyes-Escudero, Katheryne B. Willock head of special collections, University of Arizona Libraries, on their open letter to ACRL’s Rare Books and Manuscript Section on taking action toward racial justice.            
• Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia’s Anti-Racist Description Working Group.        
• Dorothy Berry, digital collections program manager at Harvard University’s Houghton Library, on self-care for archivists.      
• Dr. Ashley Farmer, author of “Archiving While Black” on the role of scholars of color in stewarding historical resources.        
• Dominique Luster on building community to better steward a photographic collection documenting African American life in mid-twentieth century Pittsburgh.
• Danna Bell, educational resource specialist, and Guha Shankar, folklife specialist, on archives, community, education, and a renewed focus on social justice at the Library of Congress.    

Archival Outlook

• “Reparative and Inclusive Metadata: UTA Libraries Reevaluates Its Practices” by Stephanie Luke and Kathryn Slover (March/April 2021).       
• “Toward Inclusive Reading Rooms: Recommendations for Decolonizing Practices and Welcoming Indigenous Researchers” by SAA Native American Archives Section and Human Rights Archives Section (Jan/Feb 2021).        
• “Finding the Stories of the Diverse People Who Built Harley Davidson’s Brand” by Bill Jackson (November/December 2021).   
• “The Role of Archives in Transformation, Community, and Healing during a Pandemic” by Zakiya Collier, LeeAnn Joseph, Julia Keiser, and Obden Mondesir (September/October 2020). 
• “Language Matters: Writing Inclusive Finding Aids and Description” by Armando Suárez (July/August 2020).         
• “Providing Culturally Responsive and Ethical Access to Indigenous Collections” by Brian Carpenter, Caitlin Haynes, Diana Marsh, Lisa Pozas, Ricky Punzalan, Gina Rappaport, and Melissa Stoner (May/June 2019).    
• “Documenting Underrepresented Communities in Oral Histories: Three Case Studies” by Steven Bingo, Qing Meade, Caitlin Oiye Coon, Geoff Froh, and Natalia Fernández (May/June 2019).       
• “Advocacy in Action: Archivist Augments Task Force’s Renaming Efforts” by Brigette C. Kamsler (July/August 2021).

American Archivist

• “Truth and Reconciliation: Archivists as Reparations Activists” by Anna Robinson-Sweet (2018, 81.1: 23–37).
• “From Datum to Databases: Digital Humanities, Slavery, and Archival Reparations” by Robert Nowatzki (2021, 83.2: 429–448).
• “Cultural Competency: A Framework for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Archival Profession in the United States” by Ellen Engseth (2018, 81.2: 460–482).    
• “Getting Our House in Order: Moving from Diversity to Inclusion” by Chris Taylor (2017, 80.1: 19–29).        
• “The Virtuous Circle of Student Research: Harnessing a Multicourse Collaborative Research Project to Enhance Archival Collections” by Derek Webb (2019, 82.1: 155–164). 

Continuing Education

• Cultural Diversity Competency Workshop.
• DEI and Collections Metadata/DEI Audit Webcast.
• Facilities & Spaces: Co-Constructing More Inclusive Spaces Webcast.
• Mentoring and Support for BIPOC Staff Webcast.
• Nontraditional Advocacy and Outreach Practices from an DEI Perspective Webcast.

Component Group Resources

• Archivists and Archives of Color Section, “Archiving in Color” and Newsletter.
• Description Section, Descriptive Notes Online Newsletter, Inclusive Description Series.
• Native American Archivists Section, Access Policies for Native American Archival Materials Case Studies Series. 
• Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Heritage Archives (LACCHA) Section, Related Professional Organizations.