Archives for Racial & Cultural Healing™

The Archives for Racial and Cultural Healing (ARCH)™ aims to solve the wounds born of past and present oppressive structures, by proposing a network of restorative archives that initiate a transformative momentum of our nation and world freeing it from the dangerous and pervasive false idea of a hierarchy of human value.

Through public-private partnerships, the ARCH network will provide scholarships, training, and student loan relief for students as well as residencies, exhibits, and training for and by Black cultural workers, entrepreneurs, scholars, and artists. Operating within a dynamic and broad access sustainable operating system, the ARCH network will also remedy the national and global digital divide. 

The ARCHs serve as a publicly and digitally accessible library, database and tool, with additional access through an open data portal initially linking archives, libraries, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), colleges, universities, and appropriate non-profit entities.

I have been actively working with the U.S. TRHT Coalition since its inception 4 years ago with Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Senator Cory Booker. The death of George Floyd was catalyst for the global call for racial equity and racial healing.  We believe that in this moment more people see the need to end the false belief in a hierarchy of human value based on race. One way to solve this is through the ARCH™. 

There is a dire need for institutions and departments to have primary access to and serve as primary sites for these archives and narratives. There are over 20 million students in colleges across the country that do not have direct access to these archives which will help provide direct access to national and global history and its consequences of the slave trade and colonization which will offer the solution to prevent anti-racism.

These archives will serve as public and digital accessible libraries, databases, tools and repositories of Black history, culture, accomplishments, freedom struggles, entrepreneurship, and resistance through an open data portal. Future generations deserve to know the truth from the lives of Black Americans and in return will cause and sustain racial healing and transformation. 

By properly memorializing, acknowledging and incubating the truths of historic patterns of racial inequity and injustice, the ARCH's™  goal is to mitigate past harms and prevent future harms as we transform to a healthier and inclusive society free of a false belief in a racial hierarchy. The ARCH™ is a highly-accessible, digital, and multi-sited “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustice in the United States.

We envision at first that every institution of higher learning would have access to and serve as sites for ARCHs across the United States. As an educational and reparative tool, ARCHs will inform policy, law, and social justice efforts and provide evidence archived to advance the broad movement for reparations, especially economically repairing and restoring Black communities, businesses and entrepreneurial endeavors. These archives will serve as libraries, databases, and repositories of Black history, culture, accomplishments, freedom struggles, entrepreneurship, and resistance.

The quest for truth, racial healing and transformation has catalyzed an unprecedented national movement with the ultimate goal of implementing lasting and transformative local, regional and national policies dismantling the systemic racism that has continually interfered with and injured Black lives, Black students, Black communities, Black entrepreneurial endeavors, and Black businesses and Black educational institutions.

But education, like the ancestors knew, is the only asset that cannot be taken from you even in debt. Your degree and the knowledge accrued along the way are yours in perpetuity. Your house, your car, your apartment, and your life, on the other hand, don’t come with same guarantees. 

There is a need for Black/ Indigenous institutions and departments to have primary access to and serve as primary sites for these archives and narratives. There are over 20 million students in colleges across the country that do not have direct access to these archives which will help with provide direct access to the national and global history and consequences of the slave trade and colonization and in return offer the solution to prevent anti-racism.

As such, our current educational systems are currently not serving the best interests of our students by leaving out historical contexts concerning Black histories and victories. More importantly, the ARCH's™  values effectuate and model the key themes of United States Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Commission as reflected in the 2021 legislation introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Senator Cory Booker:

• Collaborate: Originate an inclusive and open work environment that is built on transparency, respect, communication, accountability, integrity, and collaborative effort.

• Innovate: Encourage creativity and invest in innovation to build our future.

• Learn: Pursue excellence through continuous learning becoming smarter about what we know and what we do in service to others

In addition, coming from a prominent research institution like UCLA in the African American studies department, we are aware of the lack of educational resources, financing and opportunities Black departments and students encounter. Our people and departments are often underfunded, underserved and undervalued. But the ARCH will allow students to have first hand and direct access to archives, educational materials and data through a sustainable and welcoming operating system designed to curate Black excellence. It will also serve as a source of qualitative and quantitative data and documentation on our racial history and other relevant products of the work of healing and transforming our nation. Along side data collection, preservation and dissemination, the ARCH will also be a training ground for cultivating, researching and training for Black exhibitions, collections and residencies.

EXHIBITIONS:

Exhibitions act as the catalyst of art and ideas to the public. They represent a way of displaying and contextualizing art that makes it relevant and accessible to contemporary audience.  If you allow students of color to be reflected within the communities they reside. It is also a part of a support system for those students. For non-Black people, it expands their perception of what art is. This allows a platform for emerging and up and coming artists increasing the perceived and actual value of the artists’ work. Historically Black art is not as valued or appreciated. Study finds that just over 1 % of the art in all major U.S. museums are by Black artists. There are not enough staff or curators. 84% of the country’s museum staff (curators, educators, conservators and upper level admin) were white; 4% Blacks, 6% Asian American and 0% Native Americans and Native Hawaiians. The ARCH would offer more internships, work study programs and fellowships to allow students to use colleges in partnerships with community centers as stepping stones to showcase Black art and galleries and curators.

COLLECTIONS

We need an ARCH that would feature Black art which would lead to owning more Black objects, conserving them, preserving them, and storing them in a way that is likely to maximize their longevity. Historically there has been a lack of representation of Black art in museums. Evidence shows that 2.4 percent of acquisitions and gifts over the past 10 years to 30 US museums were of work by African American artists. Establishing an ARCH would allow for more permanent collections. Furthermore, The Met has hosted eight exhibitions focused on African American artists in the past ten years. The museum has over 40 exhibitions every year. At the National Gallery of Art, there are 986 works by Black artists out of the 153, 621 total works.

 RESIDENCIES:

We need residencies to allow artists to explore new locations, different cultures, and experiment with different materials. Much like study abroad programs, residencies are often aimed at young artists and can end up having a long-term impact on their life and work. However, there has been a lack of residencies due to infrastructure, space, room etc. Black artists have always had to take it upon themselves to create spaces of support and validation from their peers. Residencies would allow Black students to collaborate with the private sector, other community organizations and educational institutions. which open up more opportunities for them to get training for and by leading Black cultural workers, entrepreneurs, scholars, and artists.  

Our Constitution failed to end oppressions against Blacks resulting in purposeful and persistent racial inequities. To correct these wrongs, we must unveil the facts and unlock the truth. The ARCH™ serves as a digital “repository of accountability,” designed to maintain an accurate snapshot of the last 400 years of racial injustice, which schools can access. It is aimed at educating and figuring out ways to heal from the system built on historical atrocities. Ownership of national archives are curated with systematic racist polices. The ARCH consists of qualitative, quantitative data and documentation developed, acquired, commissioned and accumulated on Black life. 

We have began development of the ARCH™ framework at UCLA and George Mason University(GMU) 

On December 4, 2021, the 90th anniversary of the Lynching of Matthew Williams, GMU catalyzed the formation of in Salisbury Maryland. This was the first pilot for this program which included: 

1) Movement Building that leads to Policy Change : support local leaders with mentorship in policy analysis, coalition building, community-led documentation with national networks supporting strategic political advocacy.  

2) Narrative Change: worked with local racial justice and archival groups to collect local testimonials and archived information and create an ARCH™ in partnership with an academic, civic, faith, and governmental institution (s) to design and establish a community-sourced Salisbury, MD ARCH™:

3) Economic Justice: breathewithme will leverage the Black America ReFund as an engine of repair to support autonomy as Salisbury, MD emerges as a thriving community, pending the availability of funds in the future. 

Our vision is that the national ARCH™ would serve as the catalyst for a network of international, intercollegiate ARCHs each seeking to properly acknowledge, memorialize, and be a catalyst to end the false belief in a hierarchy of human value based on race, encourage an embracing of our common humanity to permanently eliminate persistent racial inequities. 

Through public-private partnerships, the ARCH network will be innovative by providing scholarships, training, and student loan relief for students as well as residencies, exhibits, and training for and by Black cultural workers, entrepreneurs, scholars, and artists. The quest for truth, racial healing and transformation has catalyzed an unprecedented national movement with the ultimate goal of implementing lasting and transformative local, regional and national policies dismantling the systemic racism that has continually interfered with and injured Black lives, Black communities, Black entrepreneurial endeavors, and Black businesses.

Operating within a dynamic, sustainable and broadly accessible operating system, the ARCH network also remedies the national and global digital divide by providing broad access to technology and transformative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustice. 

The ARCH allows for shared knowledge that invites guests to push beyond their perception of others and arming students with a better grasp on history through a truthful understanding of how "we got here".  This historical knowledge uplifts Black people providing them more lessons than slavery and a handful of acceptable icons while broadening the thinking of others in terms of our value and contribution. 

We are still in the concept phase. 

The current number of people we are serving is none (0). But we have UCLA as a registered participant in this program.

The number we would like to serve initially in one (1) year are all the United States Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) which are approximately about 101 that are serving more than 228,000 enrolled students. 

The number we would like to be serving in 5 years are all United States universities and colleges or 5,300 institutions of higher education in the United States.

We are looking to measure the progress through the initial phase of 100 ARCH's by how and why people use its resources. ARCHs will inform policy, law, and social justice efforts and provide evidence archived to advance the broad movement for reparations, especially economically.

• Mobile digitization of existing state, public and private records

• Organize and conduct oral history interviews with descendants and relatives of victims.

• Data acquisition, collection of narratives from survivors and their descendants, will require digitizing new and existing data to establish a digital archive that combines original and new records currently held in disparate locations.

• Develop a system to connect, curate, and purpose existing data and information with a web platform to create interactivity with the information.

• Development of a coalition of educators, activists, media leaders, policy advisors, technology partners, and Artists for the launch of the Salisbury, MD ARCH™

Full-time staff-2

Part-Time staff-4

Dr. Hunter is the Scott Waugh Endowed Chair in the Division of the Social Sciences, Professor of sociology and African American Studies at UCLA. He is the coiner of #BlackLivesMatter and author of four books. His many contributions include 'The Chocolate Cities of Los Angeles: A Public and Digital Archive of Black LA.’ He developed this project which examines the neighborhood and community effect of the Crenshaw/LAX Metro transit line and rebranding it as 'Destination Crenshaw.' This project also served as the foundation for the historically-informed architectural design for this billion-dollar transportation project.

Charles Chavis - Director of the John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice and Race (JMJP) has been working for 5 years to research and document racial terror lynchings on Maryland Eastern Short, Including Salisbury MD.

Robert Smith is a former Division 1 athlete turned serial entrepreneur. He created a proprietary algorithmic formula known as the “Influencer Model” centered around the macroeconomic effects influencers have in TET (Technology, Entertainment, and Trends). As the Founder & Managing Partner of IECP, he was the lead investor and fund manager playing an integral role in building a portfolio of over 80 portfolio companies. 

Leigh Blake and Ann Haggart - Fame Currency Inc - Leaders of the #breathewithme Revolution. Leaders of The Black America Refund. 

Masozi Nyirenda, Esq - Lawyer, Promotional/Branding and Marketing Specialist. Former Foster Youth.

Christian D. Green - Professor of History and African American Studies, Author and Political advocacy and outreach coordinator. Former Foster Youth.

As a poor-homeless-black-gay-kid-turned-token-black-gay-feminist-professor, I am NOT unfamiliar with having to ride in the backseat or the trunk of the Black freedom dialogue and struggle. As such, I have made it my life's mission to advocate for people who face challenges like harassment, hostility, humiliation, and dehumanization, especially when that discrimination includes but is not limited to race, gender, and sexual orientation. 

Additionally, my mission is to build and create a diverse environment that is not just based on lip service, which can be a mask for broader patterns of structural and institutional racism but a place where diversity is truly valued and celebrated. This is based on my common sense of humanity, compassion, empathy, and sympathy for marginalized communities.

Furthermore, I believe as an educator, author, and activist, my life’s work and research have been about freedom, liberation, and the fight against white supremacist, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Black ideologies systematically and institutionally, as demonstrated by my leadership in the US Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Coalition and #BreatheWithMe Revolution organizations. I have also shown this by my expertise with research surrounding people’s liberation and love of and respect for marginalized and underrepresented people. 

I will bring these same values, skills, and knowledge in my role as ARCH's solution team leader.

The ARCH™  is more than a passion project. It's part of a larger framework committed to truth, racial healing and transformative polices. It's designed to unlock the truth with the goal of moving this country to racial healing, justice and equity. This dynamic initiative, serves as a highly-accessible, digital, and multi-sited “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustices. This can only be accomplished with the allyship of community members, organizations including the public-private sectors.

We are applying to the Solve Challenge because of our aligned mission in solving challenges that continue to plague our communities including racism, injustices and inequities. Like Solve, ARCH's mission is to cultivate a community of transformative and impactful change through the use of innovation, technology, coalition building. 

With years in the game, MIT has widened it's reach, influence and exposure in mentoring, coaching, fostering and cultivating programs designed to impact our global community. "Each of us needs all of us.” I started using this quote when I first came to UCLA. It is a consistent reminder that we are a part of a community larger than many of us think. The world we need, needs each of us. My daily goal as an advocate, professor, and advisor is to educate students with kindness and to remind them that in a world where everything seems to cost something it is still entirely free to change your mind. Black knowledge is Black power.

As we are building toward an all inclusive and equity framework of truth, racial healing and transformation we must realize this is new and thus there is no one size fits all answer. This allows us room to try technology while challenging anti-racist policies and procedures. We know this idea is new and never has been done so we will need money to help with improving accounting practices and pitching to investors. We will need help with Technology - software and hardware and also with data analysis. 

Along with Humanity United, African American Studies Departments, and HBCUs, we would like to partner with Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Intel to assist with the technology innovation aspect. We would also like to partner with NARA, Open Society, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Vodafone America Foundation, Comcast NBCUNIVERSAL, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation

We qualify for Robert Johnson Foundation Prize because the concept of the ARCH™ is heavily steeped in digital data acquisition, access, and dissemination of information which have impacted Black lives. This data will allow users to unlock the truth about racial injustices including health inequities that impacted Black lives leading to transformative polices in remedying these past harms.

The ARCH is a dynamic initiative that will serve as a highly-accessible, digital, and multi-sited “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustices including the racist policies embedded in the U.S. health care system. The ARCH is a part of a much larger framework on truth, racial healing and transformative polices that are designed to focus on five pillars: narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy which impact the health of Black lives.

The ARCH is a solution to this problem because it promotes qualitative and quantitative data and documentation developed, acquired, commissioned and accumulated on Black life, history, health art, music, culture, and American history. These archives in the ARCH will serve as public and digital accessible libraries, databases, tools and repositories of Black history, culture, accomplishments, freedom struggles, entrepreneurship, and resistance through an open data portal to better the lives and health of Black lives.

We qualify for The ASA Prize because the concept of the ARCH™ is heavily steeped in digital data acquisition, access, and dissemination of information of historical significances impacting Black lives and history. This data will allow users and students to unlock the truth about racial injustices against Black lives leading to transformative polices in remedying past harms and atrocities.

The ARCH is a dynamic initiative that will serve as a highly-accessible, digital, and multi-sited “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustices. The ARCH is a part of a much larger framework on truth, racial healing and transformative polices that are designed to focus on five pillars: narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy leading to educational changes.

Future generations and students deserve to know the truth from the lives of Black Americans which in return will cause and sustain racial healing and transformation. Historically there have been problems associated with accurate data acquisition on Black people steeped in racist policies and principals.

The ARCH is a solution to this problem because it promotes qualitative and quantitative data and documentation developed, acquired, commissioned and accumulated on Black life, history, art, music, culture, and American history. These archives in the ARCH will serve as public and digital accessible libraries, databases, tools and repositories of Black history, culture, accomplishments, freedom struggles, entrepreneurship, and resistance through an open data portal for various educational institutions.

We qualify for The Elevate Prize because I am a professor/leader at a nonprofit institution, UCLA. The ARCH is a dynamic initiative that will serve as a highly-accessible, digital, and multi-sited “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustices. The ARCH is a part of a much larger framework on truth, racial healing and transformative polices that are designed to focus on five pillars: narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy.

Future generations deserve to know the truth from the lives of Black Americans which in return will cause and sustain racial healing and transformation. Historically there have been problems associated with accurate data acquisition on Black people steeped in racist policies and principals. Coupled with the digital divide that is undergirded by both socio-economic disadvantage and racial inequity, Black people have often been dispossessed from the very data based upon their lives and experiences. 

The ARCH is a solution to this problem because it promotes qualitative and quantitative data and documentation developed, acquired, commissioned and accumulated on Black life, history, art, music, culture, and American history. These archives in the ARCH will serve as public and digital accessible libraries, databases, tools and repositories of Black history, culture, accomplishments, freedom struggles, entrepreneurship, and resistance through an open data portal.

We qualify for the GM Prize because the concept of the ARCH™ is heavily steeped in digital data acquisition, access, and dissemination of information on racial historical significances. This data will allow users to unlock the truth about racial injustices leading to transformative polices in remedying past harms and atrocities.

The ARCH is a dynamic initiative that will serve as a highly-accessible, digital, and multi-sited “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustices. The ARCH is a part of a much larger framework on truth, racial healing and transformative polices that are designed to focus on five pillars: narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy.

We need to collect and disseminate data on Black people because there is a need for streamlining and centralizing archives on the national and global history and consequences of the slave trade and colonization. There is a need for Black/ Indigenous institutions and departments to have primary access that serves as primary sites for these archives and narratives. 

Black life did not end nor begin with the global Slave Trade and the colonization of Africa, and thus we will need to keep up, restore and preserve not only the current trends, ideas, businesses, music, culture, art and research.

The ARCH is a solution to this problem because it promotes qualitative and quantitative data and documentation developed, acquired, commissioned and accumulated on Black life and American history. 

We qualify for The HP Prize because the concept of the ARCH™ is heavily steeped in digital data acquisition, access, and dissemination of information of historical significances impacting Black lives and history. This data will allow users to unlock the truth about racial injustices against Black lives leading to transformative polices in remedying past harms and atrocities.

The ARCH is a dynamic initiative that will serve as a highly-accessible, digital, and multi-sited “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustices. The ARCH is a part of a much larger framework on truth, racial healing and transformative polices that are designed to focus on five pillars: narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy.

We need to collect and disseminate data on Black people because there is a need for streamlining and centralizing archives on the national and global history and consequences of the slave trade and colonization. There is a need for Black/ Indigenous institutions and departments to have primary access that serves as primary sites for these archives and narratives. 

The ARCH is a solution to this problem because it promotes qualitative and quantitative data and documentation developed, acquired, commissioned and accumulated on Black life, history, art, music, culture, and American history. These archives in the ARCH will serve as public and digital accessible libraries, databases, tools and repositories of Black history, culture, accomplishments, freedom struggles, entrepreneurship, and resistance through an open 

We qualify for the Innovation for Women Prize because the ARCH™ is a dynamic initiative that will serve as a highly-accessible, digital, and multi-sited “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustices which include atrocities made against Black women and girls. The ARCH is a part of a much larger framework on truth, racial healing and transformative polices that are designed to focus on five pillars: narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy that have historically impacted Black women and girls.

The ARCH is a solution to this problem because it promotes qualitative and quantitative data and documentation developed, acquired, commissioned and accumulated on Black life, history, art, music, culture, and American history. These archives in the ARCH will serve as public and digital accessible libraries, databases, tools and repositories of Black history, culture, accomplishments, freedom struggles, entrepreneurship, and resistance through an open data portal.

The ARCH will allow for the truth to be unlocked regarding the racist, sexist and systematic atrocities committed on Black women and girls. This information will allow for transformative and reparative discussions and policies that will focus on correcting and remedying them through the five pillars mentioned above.

We qualify for The AI for Humanity Prize because the concept of the ARCH™ is heavily steeped in digital data acquisition, access, and dissemination of information of historical significances impacting Black lives and history. This data will allow users to unlock the truth about racial injustices against Black lives leading to transformative polices in remedying past harms and atrocities.

In essence, the ARCH is a dynamic initiative that will serve as a highly-accessible, digital, and multi-sited “repository of accountability” for restorative justice, designed to create and maintain an accurate national history of 400+ years of racial injustices. The ARCH is a part of a much larger framework on truth, racial healing and transformative polices that are designed to focus on five pillars: narrative change, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy.

We need to collect and disseminate data on Black people because there is a need for streamlining and centralizing archives on the national and global history and consequences of the slave trade and colonization. There is a need for Black/ Indigenous institutions and departments to have primary access that serves as primary sites for these archives and narratives. 

Black life did not end nor begin with the global Slave Trade and the colonization of Africa, and thus we will need to keep up, restore and preserve not only the current trends, ideas, businesses, music, culture, art and research but also what transpired in the past to lead to the genocides and destruction of Black people through political, intellectual property, legal, economical, spatial and spiritual harm. 

Future generations deserve to know the truth from the lives of Black Americans which in return will cause and sustain racial healing and transformation. Historically there have been problems associated with accurate data acquisition on Black people steeped in racist policies and principals. Coupled with the digital divide that is undergirded by both socio-economic disadvantage and racial inequity, Black people have often been dispossessed from the very data based upon their lives and experiences. 

The ARCH is a solution to this problem because it promotes qualitative and quantitative data and documentation developed, acquired, commissioned and accumulated on Black life, history, art, music, culture, and American history. These archives in the ARCH will serve as public and digital accessible libraries, databases, tools and repositories of Black history, culture, accomplishments, freedom struggles, entrepreneurship, and resistance through an open data portal.