ASU Black Collections grows to preserve Arizona Black history

ASU’s library houses a repository of Black Collections that started in 2021, thanks to a generous grant. Now, Black Collections is focused on creating a robust community collection dedicated to documenting the lived experiences of Black people living and thriving in Arizona. They have also asked community members to contribute their stories.

Jessica Salow, Assistant Archivist at ASU Library’s Black Collections, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss ASU’s Black Collections.

“It is a collection of community-driven archival practices,” Salow said. “We are really dedicated in ensuring that all communities, that includes inside ASU and outside ASU that surrounds our campuses, has a collection that’s dedicated to their stories, their memory, their history here in Arizona.”

The repository was born after Dr. Michael Crow launched initiatives regarding Black faculty and students at ASU in 2020. At that time, community-driven archives were interested in expanding. Black Collections received funding from ASU’s Listen, Invest, Facilitate and Teach (LIFT) Initiative.

“We really are at a point where we can really take things in any direction that we want and have the flexibility to be anywhere,” Salow said.

Salow wants everybody in the Black or African-American community in Arizona to contact Black Collections to help preserve their memory.

“We also have the ability to give you free archival supplies or teach you how to do these particular things we as professionally trained archivists know how to do,” Salow said.