When historian Carter Woodson created “Negro Historical past Week” in 1926, which grew to become “Black History Month” in 1976, he sought to not simply have fun distinguished Black historic figures however to remodel how white America noticed and valued all African Individuals.
Nonetheless, many points within the historical past of Black Individuals can get misplaced in a deal with well-known historic figures or different necessary occasions.
Our analysis seems at how African American communities struggling for freedom have lengthy used maps to protest and survive racism whereas affirming the worth of Black life.
We’ve got been engaged on the “Living Black Atlas,” an academic initiative that highlights the uncared for historical past of Black mapmaking in America. It reveals the creative ways by which Black individuals have traditionally used mapping to doc their tales. At the moment communities are utilizing “restorative mapping” as a solution to inform tales of Black Individuals.
Maps as a visible storytelling method
Whereas most individuals consider maps as a great tool to get from level A to level B, or use maps to lookup locations or plan journeys, the fact is that every one maps inform tales. Historically, most maps did not accurately mirror the tales of Black individuals and locations: Interstate freeway maps, for instance, don’t mirror the realities that in most U.S. cities the constructing of main roads was accompanied by the displacement of 1000’s of Black individuals from cities.
Like many marginalized teams, Black individuals have used maps as a visual storytelling technique for “talking back” in opposition to their oppression. They’ve additionally used maps for enlivening and giving dignity to Black experiences and histories.
An instance of that is the NAACP’s marketing campaign to foyer for anti-lynching federal legislation within the early twentieth century. The NAACP mapped the location and frequency of lynching to point out how widespread racial terror was to the American public.
One other instance is the Pupil Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s efforts to doc racism within the American South within the Sixties. The SNCC research department’s maps and analysis on racism performed a pivotal function in planning civil rights protests. SNCC produced conventional-looking county-level maps of earnings and schooling inequalities, which have been issued to activists within the subject. The group additionally developed inventive “network maps,” which uncovered how power structures and institutions supported racial discrimination in financial and political methods. These maps and experiences may then determine pressing areas of protest.
Extra lately, artist-activist Tonika Lewis Johnson created the “Folded Map Project,” by which she introduced collectively corresponding addresses on racially separated sides of the identical avenue, to point out how racism remade the town of Chicago. She photographed the “map twins” and interviewed people dwelling at paired addresses to point out the disparities. The venture introduced residents from the north and south sides of Chicago to fulfill and discuss to one another.
Maps for restorative justice
Restorative mapping is a crucial a part of the Dwelling Black Atlas: It helps deliver visibility to Black experiences which have been marginalized or forgotten.
Thousands and thousands of African Individuals migrated from the Deep South to the commercial North within the Forties, ’50s, and ’60s. On this 1941 photograph, Black children are dressed for Easter on the South Aspect of Chicago. [Photo: Russell Lee/U.S. Library of Congress]
Whereas participating Black Individuals within the effort, the CBSCM map tells the story of Chicago by way of a collection of inventive actions that spotlight African Individuals’ connection with the city.
After years of gentrification and concrete renewal applications that displaced Black individuals from the city, this venture helps keep in mind these neighborhoods digitally. It’s also inviting a broader dialogue concerning the historical past of Black Chicago.
Restoring a way of place
An necessary thought behind restorative mapping is the act of returning one thing to a former proprietor or situation. This connects with the broader restorative justice motion that seeks to deal with historic wrongs by documenting previous and current injustices by way of views which can be typically ignored or forgotten.
The CBSCM map isn’t a standard paper map. Whereas it consists of many stuff you would discover in such a map, comparable to street networks and political boundaries, the map additionally consists of hyperlinks to fiction writing and the Chicago Renaissance, art and music, in addition to expressions of food, household life, education, and politics that doc a hidden historical past of Black life within the metropolis. The map provides links to specific historic paperwork, socially significant websites, and to the lives of people who inform the story of Black Chicago.
Thus, the map helps spotlight how this geography remains to be current in Chicago in archives and other people’s reminiscences. Via this digital illustration of Black Chicagoans’ deep cultural roots within the metropolis, the mapping goals to revive a way of place. Such work embodies what Black Historical past Month is about.
