Community Engagement

Supporting Community Commemoration: 50 Years of the Garrity Decision

Outreach work in archives often intersects with observing anniversaries. This is especially true at Northeastern’s Archives and Special Collections, which houses records of community-based organizations that are still around today. This year, in 2024, community members across the Greater Boston area have been observing the anniversary of the court decision by Judge Arthur Garrity to desegregate Boston’s public schools.

My role as Reference and Outreach Archivist is to connect the community members and organizations with records relevant to their needs in the most meaningful way possible. I do this type of work regularly by providing classes, workshops, and reference and research services. But for occasions such as a 50-year anniversary, reference and outreach work requires customized approaches.

This summer, I managed a very customized approach to archival outreach: coordinating and designing a multi-archive and guest-curated exhibit on school desegregation for installation in the Boston Public Library’s (BPL) Gallery J. While discussion of creating the exhibit began a year ago, when leaders in the Boston Desegregation and Busing Initiative (BDBI helped submit a proposal to the BPL, the curation, exhibition selection, design, and installation happened quickly over the last couple of months. What resulted is a 20-case exhibition in the central branch of Boston’s public library entitled, “A History of Public Education Reform and Desegregation in Boston.”

A glass case containing archival documents and photos
One chapter of the “A History of Public Education Reform and Desegregation in Boston” exhibit in Gallery J of Boston Public Library
Archivist Molly Brown stands on a stool and hangs archival materials in a glass display case
Molly Brown installing exhibit pieces

Community historian Jim Vrabel lent his deep knowledge to propose an exhibit observing 10 chapters of Boston’s desegregation history, beginning in 1635 and ending today in 2024. Paired with each chapter was a timeline of events in the long history of education activism and desegregation in the city. Area archives, including the City of Boston Archives, the John Joseph Moakley Archive and Institute at Suffolk University, and the University of Massachusetts Boston Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library, contributed records that were selected by Vrabel to illustrate the narratives in each chapter. This collaboration resulted more than 90 archival records and excerpts included in the 10 timelines.

After the exhibit narrative had been written and the archival materials selected, it was up to me to design, format, and caption the exhibit, as well as make reproductions to display in the exhibit cases. Northeastern University Library sponsored the printing of the reproductions. All of the exhibit elements were installed for viewing on Sept. 18, in time to serve as a part of BPL’s citywide forums on Sept. 28, offering visual and tangible evidence to the emotional personal stories and responses to the events of school desegregation that still reverberate today.

A glass case containing archival documents and photos

But not all outreach takes place in an exhibit. Sometimes, a custom outreach project looks like making large-scale reproductions of documents and photographs to spark conversation, kept and stewarded by a partner organization, as I did last September for the BDBI. Other times, it can be providing in-depth rights and permissions labor, approving use of images in projects and suggesting other images to include, as I did for the BDBI and WGBH for their digital walking tour of school desegregation history.

Beyond the digital resources, you can also view the exhibit for yourself by visiting the Boston Public Library’s Central Branch (700 Boylston Street). It will be on display in Gallery J until Jan. 7.

Follow the BDBI for more events and updates, and consider attending their forums at the BPL this Saturday, Sept. 28.

Ready to Research: Newly Processed Collections Asian American Resource Workshop and the Fenway Alliance

Black and white image of people marching and holding signs
Demonstration against the construction of the DD Ramp into Chinatown, circa 1997, photographer Anne Marie Booth. Asian American Resource Workshop records, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

Introducing the Asian American Resource Workshop Finding Aid
Contributed by Dominique Medal

The Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW) was founded in 1979 as one of Boston’s first pan-Asian organizations. AARW expanded from an initial focus on cultural and educational programming to addressing social and economic justice issues facing the Asian American community, including violence against Asian Americans and urban renewal and development in Chinatown.

Two women painting a mural
Two women painting a mural of faces, circa 1990, photographer unknown. Asian American Resource Workshop records, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

The records held by the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections date from 1979 to 2012 and document AARW’s activities through administrative records, photographs, reports, documentaries, promotional materials, and subject files.

The collection focuses on AARW programs, including Asian and Pacific American Heritage Week, the Boston Asian American Film Festival, the Civil Rights Capacity Building Project, the SafetyNet Violence Prevention Project, and the Sticky Rice Project.

To learn more about the Asian American Resource Workshop records, explore the finding aid and digitized content from the collection in the Digital Repository Service.

Introducing the Fenway Alliance Finding Aid
Contributed by Irene Gates

The Fenway Alliance is a consortium of Fenway neighborhood cultural organizations and educational institutions (including Northeastern University). It was first founded in 1977 as The Boston Plan. The consortium addresses areas of shared concern that range from security and parking to physical improvements of the neighborhood.

The records date from the 1970s to the 2010s and document the administrative records, plans, reports, photographs, and subject files. A recent donation by the organization’s Director of Planning from the late 1970s to the 1990s includes photographic slides such as the one featured here.

A body of water with lush trees and grass behind it. A stone bridge is visible in the distance
Back Bay Fens, July 1988, photographer unknown. Fenway Alliance records, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

Collection topics include Fenway area transportation, housing, demographics, physical landscape, historic preservation, and cultural programming. Some major projects undertaken by the Fenway Alliance in the past include the Avenue of the Arts designation, the Fenway Cultural District designation, and the Muddy River restoration.

To learn more about the Fenway Alliance records, explore the finding aid.

Gina Nortonsmith Discusses Work with CRRJ Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive in NEA Newsletter Article

Gina Nortonsmith, a smiling woman with short hair and glasses
Gina Nortonsmith

Northeastern University African American History Archivist Gina Nortonsmith had an extensive article published in the January 2024 issues of the New England Archivists Newsletter, discussing her work with the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project’s Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive.

Nortonsmith was originally hired as a Project Archivist for the CRRJ, tasked with compiling anti-Black homicide case records from the Jim Crow era into a collection to allow for accessibility and trend study by researchers. In the article, she discusses her work and the overarching goals of both representing the work of the CRRJ while also maintaining “the dignity and respect for victims and their families.”

To do this, Nortonsmith and the rest of the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive team centralized the victims’ lives and stories, not just the crime that was committed against them. In her article, she discusses approaching each record as referring to a real person and not an abstract notion. Often that included discovering and using victims’ real names, instead of alternate names or misspellings that are common in the records.

“We wanted to build an archive which illuminated CRRJ’s work and that led us to put the victim and their story foremost in arrangement, description, and access,” Nortonsmith wrote.

The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archives contains investigative records from federal and local entities as well as records from advocacy groups and letters from family and community members advocating for justice. They also included death certificates, newspaper articles, photos, and more. Taken together, these records provide a complete story of the prevalence of anti-Black violence and murder in the Jim Crow South from 1930-1954 and the failures of the justice system to solve these crimes and punish the perpetrators.

As archivists, Nortonsmith and her team made sure these records were catalogued and organized in a way that included and highlighted all parts of the victims’ life and story. Working with such subject matter was difficult, but “knowing that we were helping to bring these stories forward once again went a long way toward keeping us moving forward,” Nortonsmith wrote.

The January issue of the New England Archivists Newsletter is currently available for subscription-holders. Past issues are freely available on their website.

Celebration, Activism, and Outreach in the Theater Offensive Records

Poster for Pure PolyEsther
“Pure PolyEsther,” ca. 1990-2000. The Theater Offensive records, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

While Pride is recognized as a protest, it can also be a time of celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community and queer identity. Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections is fortunate to steward the records of The Theater Offensive, a queer performing arts organization which is still alive and thriving in Boston today and will soon celebrate its 35th year of operation in 2024. Founded in 1989 by Abe Rybeck and other artists, the Theater Offensive strived to combine art and activism for the benefit of the LGBTQIA+ community throughout New England and, eventually, nationally. 

Since its founding, they have put on numerous performances, festivals, and community programs. Of note in Northeastern’s digital repository is the performance of Pure PolyEsther: A Biblical Burlesque, an adaptation of the story of Esther from the Old Testament as a part of Purim celebrations. Written by Rybeck, Pure PolyEsther was described as a “hot, flamboyant Mardi Gras…[that] melts the edge off the bitter New England winter.” It is an intersectional celebration of both Jewish and queer traditions. 

The Theater Offensive has also uplifted LGBTQIA+ youth with their True Colors program and their youth outreach performances. These have included the Living with AIDS Theater Project’s Lessons from the Heart, which educated teens on ways to combat the AIDS epidemic, highlighting an intergenerational conversation and relationship between queer youth and adults that remains incredibly valuable to this day. 

Black and white image of performers gathered together. Some are holding instruments and papers and others are singing
“True Colors Youth Theater, ‘Love + Mosquitos,'” 1998. The Theater Offensive records, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections

The Theater Offensive continues to be an important cultural institution in Boston, and its records illustrate a rich and robust past that has championed queer creativity and community. To learn more about the Theater Offensive’s work not just this Pride Month but all year round, check out the resources available through the digital repository and University Archives and Special Collections!

Sources: 

“History.” The Theater Offensive, https://thetheateroffensive.org/history. 

“Pure PolyEsther.” The Theater Offensive records (M082). University Libraries Archives and Special Collections Department.

“‘Pure PolyEsther’ press release.” The Theater Offensive records (M082). University Libraries Archives and Special Collections Department.

The Theater Offensive records, M082. Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections. https://archivesspace.library.northeastern.edu/repositories/2/resources/856 Accessed June 23, 2023.

“True Colors Youth Theater, ‘Love + Mosquitos.’” The Theater Offensive records (M082). University Libraries Archives and Special Collections Department.

One Run: Resilience in the Wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing

At 2:49 p.m. on April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs were detonated near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, just over four hours after the start of the race. The aftermath of this disaster, on what should have been a joyful occasion, was devastating. Three spectators were killed, and 281 other people were injured. Many people in Boston and surrounding communities were affected and sought to find ways of healing from this trauma.

Among those seeking to make sense of this event were Northeastern English professors Dr. Ryan Cordell and Dr. Elizabeth Maddock Dillon. They noted the strong reactions in their students, including those not directly impacted by the bombing, and decided to collect public stories of the larger Boston community. They hired a team of graduate students to gather and organize contributions, with the goal of creating an online community archive reflecting on this event. Two graduate students from this original team, Dr. Jim McGrath and Dr. Alicia Peaker, later became co-directors of this project. Along the way, collaborations were established with the NPR radio station, WBUR, the Boston Globe, and the Boston Public Library. The goal of this collection, later entitled Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive, was to construct a public memory to foster a better sense of community in the wake of this tragedy.

The Our Marathon collection includes nearly 8,000 items, with materials ranging from letters to collages to oral histories and other first-person accounts collected by those who founded the project. This archive bears some resemblance to other projects that used crowdsourced materials in response to a public trauma, such as the September 11 Digital Archive (created in 2001) and the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (created in 2005 following hurricanes Katrina and Rita). All three of these projects also focus on the places where traumatic events have occurred. There is a strong emphasis in this collection on showing the implications of this attack for the local community, although materials also include letters sent to people in Boston from students around the world.

In this past year I have become familiar with these materials while adding to and editing some of the metadata for these items in the DRS to clarify the copyright status, associated names and subjects of these materials, as well as the languages used in certain items, for researchers. In surveying this collection, I was particularly intrigued by how the marathon community dealt with this trauma. This attack created a lot of fear and uncertainty around future marathons. In fact, the London Marathon was run six days later, and security was greatly increased there because of what had happened in Boston. But many marathoners in Boston and across the country defiantly raced again, and two of these races – both called “One Run” – are documented in the Our Marathon collection.

Several people run over the yellow and blue finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Runners at “One Run” event in Boston (May 2013). Photo courtesy of MarathonFoto Photographrs.

The first of these races, the “One Run” Boston Marathon event, took place on May 25, 2013. The bombings kept about 5,700 runners from finishing the original race on April 15, and so “One Run” was seen as a way for these runners to complete the final mile of the race. The Facebook post about the event also said “all are welcome to run – nobody will be turned away. This is a free event open to everyone. No registration is required.” This event was thus meant to be inclusive and healing, but it also allowed marathoners to re-experience the outcome of their race.

A video of the opening ceremony for “One Run” is available through the Our Marathon collection. During this ceremony, the national anthem is sung by the children’s choir of the St. Ann Parish, the church to which Martin Richard—an 8-year-old boy who was killed by the bombing—belonged.

Four people stand on the side of a road in what looks like a desert holding a white banner reading "One Run Boston Relay" and displaying a blue map of the United States with a white trail from Los Angeles to Boston. There are signatures all over the sign. Three of the people are wearing blue t-shirts that say "One Run Boston."
Carrying the Banner at the #onerun for Boston. June 11, 2013

Numerous photographs, contributed to this archive by MarathonFoto, also display the joy of the participants and their families as they cross the finish line.

The second race highlighted in the Our Marathon collection occurred a month later. “One Run for Boston” was a non-stop running relay of 3,328 miles, starting in Los Angeles on June 7, 2013, and ending in Boston on June 30, 2013. This race, organized by Danny Bent, Kate Treleaven and Jamie Hay, was a fundraiser, collecting $550,000 for the victims of the bombing through Boston’s One Fund.

The “One Run for Boston” race had an emotional finish. John Odom was badly injured while watching his daughter run on April 15. On June 30, his daughter, Nichole Reis, handed the baton to him in his wheelchair and pushed him over the finish line.

A man sitting in a wheelchair wearing a yellow raincoat over a Boston Strong shirt is smiling and surrounded by cheering runners wearing One Run Boston shirts
John Odom and “Miles” the Baton. July 1, 2013. Photo courtesy of Kristi Girdharry

Both of the “One Run” races served first and foremost as an acknowledgement of the suffering caused by the marathon bombing. They also served as a unifying force, made clear by the obvious camaraderie displayed in the photos here. But finally, these races allowed marathoners a kind of therapeutic experience – they took hold of a situation in which they were vulnerable and transformed it into an active reclamation.