Afro Charities presents Re-Reading the News: Black Women Stewarding Cultural Memory, with Imani Haynes, Deyane Moses, Alexis Ojeda-Brown and Angela Rodgers-Koukoui.
According to the Society of American Archivists only 3% of archivists identify as Black. Come learn from a panel of Black women cultural memory workers about how their identities inform their work, what collections they steward, as well as practical tips for exploring a career as an archivist, or in adjacent fields.
This panel was organized in partnership with Blackives, LLC.
Re-Reading the News is an occasional conversation series inspired by the AFRO Archives.
The event opens with the reading of a past article from the AFRO that sets the tone for the conversation to follow. Panelists are often an intergenerational group of scholars and community members with close ties to the topic at hand.
Photo, L-R: Tonika Berkley, Angela Rodgers-Koukoui, Bria Warren, Deyane Moses and Savannah Wood. This photo was taken while rehousing the AFRO Archives with members of Inheritance Baltimore, a joint UB-JHU initiative to map and preserve Black archival collections throughout Baltimore.
Imani Y. Haynes is a Curator, Exhibit Designer, Historian, and Art Administrator. She graduated from Savannah State University with a B. A in History; Spring 2020, Imani graduated from The Maryland Institute College of Art with an M.F.A in Curatorial Practice and a concentration in Critical Studies. She currently works as the Education Program Manager at the Josiah Henson Museum and Park and is the founder of a new mobile museum, Black Woman's Museum. Imani's mission is to give a platform to the stories of those who often are silenced and or ignored by society.
Angela Koukoui is the Outreach and Public Services Coordinator at the University of Baltimore RLB Library's Special Collections and Archives. Angela earned her MLIS at the University of Maryland, College of Information Studies, and her BA in Integrated Arts from the University of Baltimore. After a career in communications finance, she founded her own community arts program to teach dance to Baltimore youth.
Angela is director of the Community Archives Program for Inheritance Baltimore, a collaboration with Johns Hopkins University in preserving African American art and culture.
Deyane Moses is a veteran, artist, activist, and curator living in Baltimore, MD. She graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with a BFA in Photography and an MFA in Curatorial Practice. She received international recognition during her studies for her project, The Maryland Institute Black Archives (MIBA), which documents MICA's Black history from the 1800s to the present and explores its relationship with Black Baltimoreans. MIBA and its accompanying programs prompted MICA’s President to issue a public statement apologizing for the College’s racist past. In 2020, Deyane founded Blackives, LLC a consulting firm that assists Black folk with research, preservation, and mobilization of the archives. She is currently the Public Access Archivist for Afro Charities Inc, which is a non-profit organization preserving 130 years of Baltimore AFRO American Newspaper Archives.
Alexis Ojeda-Brown is the Program and Education Coordinator for the Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum and the Marketing Coordinator for the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Alexis is currently developing curricula for LCJM and the Black Arts District that will introduce BCPS Middle School and High School Students to Baltimore's rich Civil Rights history and cultural contributions.