These Stories Must Be Told: Preliminary Observations by a Black Scholar Practitioner on Silences in the Archive

As a scholar practitioner, a trained philosophical theologian, Methodist clergywoman, and social enterprise founder who is conducting oral histories as part of my doctoral internship in the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, my scholarly lens and methodological skills are being defined as I interrogate the COVID-19 archive. In this article I attempt to offer some preliminary reflections on my oral history curation focused on how Black and brown artists and activists, primarily based in Indianapolis, IN, frame their lived experiences of death, dying, mourning, and bereavement in the wake of COVID-19 utilizing critical archival practices: those practices that take seriously the methods of critical race theory, critical gender theory, Womanist, mujerista, and feminist methodologies, to name a few. The COVID-19 archive is a collection of oral histories, stories and artifacts depicting the times in which we are living, through the lenses of storytellers grappling with the pandemics of systemic racism, COVID-19, distrust in government, and various relics representing the idea of the United States of America in 2020, as such, I conclude with a brief exploration of how art emerges as both an outlet for creators and a mode of illumination for consumers.

“The Myth Is Dead! Give Us Our History!” Reassessing Black Labor in African HistoryThe Moon Is Dead! Give Us Our Money! The Cultural Origins of an African Work Ethic, Natal, South Africa, 1843–1900, by Keletso E. Atkins

Keletso Atkins’s 1993 book The Moon Is Dead! Give Us Our Money! The Cultural Origins of an African Work Ethic, Natal, South Africa, 1843–1900, remains as prescient now as it was a quarter-century ago. Atkins’s insistence on a methodology that foregrounded African labor regimes as logically consistent, rational, and deserving of full consideration within a proto-capitalist colonial market has had a significant impact in Southern African historical scholarship, and these calls have been taken up with earnest by subsequent scholars. Perhaps most important, however, has been her self-aware approach as a black scholar writing to and for members of the diaspora, an academic achievement rarely repeated in her subfield.