Diversity Award: Shorefront

Shorefront is a 2015 recipient of the Diversity Award. The award recognizes an individual, group, or institution for outstanding contributions in advancing diversity within the archives profession, SAA, or the archival record.

From its beginning in 1995, Shorefront, an Evanston, Illinois–based nonprofit, has diligently collected, preserved, and shared artifacts, documents, photographs, and family archives representing the lives of the black community on the Chicago suburban North Shore.  Shorefront's founding was motivated by the recognition that the records of this vital history, spanning more than 150 years, were at great risk and in need of a long-term community-based steward. Shorefront is now home to more than 170 linear feet of archival collections. In addition to maintaining the Shorefront Legacy Center, the public access point for its collection, Shorefront has embraced its mission of education, supporting extensive public programming and, through its Shorefront Press, publishing an annual journal and historical monographs.  

“Shorefront’s continuous research and collaborations have forever changed how Illinois views the contributions of blacks to one of the nation’s most populous and industrious states,” one supporter wrote.

Shorefront joins the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida as the 2015 recipients of the Diversity Award.