SALT LAKE CITY – Frederick Douglass once famously said, “Knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.” As we celebrate Black History Month, what better place to take in some of that knowledge than in the library?
“You have an extensive history here. We do,” said University of Utah librarian Allyson Mower. “There is a really strong Black history here in the state of Utah.”
The University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library is extending its digital reach to preserve Utah’s Black History.
“Most recently, we started an online digital archive, the France Davis Utah Black Archive,” Mower said. “And the goal there was to really be able to have a place to archive born, digital content created by Utah’s Black community.”
Related: SLC votes to allow new library union, but will it be held up by proposed law?
The France Davis Utah Black Archive will bring together a collection of writings, photographs, community records, and other content pertaining to Utah’s Black community from the past and the present.
“I remember learning about James Beckworth,” Mower said. “He was a blacksmith with the Ashley Fur Trading Company, but there’s so much more history.”
“I would start with Reverend France Davis,” Mower said. “We have his papers here in special collections, his sermons. But he also did write a history book.”
The archives will immoralize names and stories you may recognize.
“Jane Manning James was a free Black woman who was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who entered the Salt Lake Valley early on as a pioneer,” Mower said.
“Mignon Richmond was the first (Black) college graduate in Utah,” Mower said.
Some names and histories to be preserved may require you to dig a little deeper. For example, Alberta Henry, a Louisiana woman, was hired by the Salt Lake City School District in the 1970s.
“We have her papers here too,” Mower said. “She really was the first diversity education coordinator within the Salt Lake City School District, and Black students were getting the education that they needed.”
Not only will specific people and their stories live on through the archive, but organizations and newspapers will withstand the test of time.
“These are historic Black newspapers that were produced here in Utah,” Mower said. “This is the Broad Ax.”
“The ‘Broad Ax’ was a weekly African American newspaper founded in Salt Lake City in 1895 by Julius F. Taylor, a former slave focusing on issues of racial equality and political commentary, Mower said. “It’s just one of many in the collection, and our collections here really try to give the full scope of Utah Black History.”
The archive is extensive, filing away papers and published books for anyone to read.
“And then there’s a lot of oral histories too, that were conducted in the 70s, 60s and 80s,” Mower said.
Mower said she wanted the archives to be a useful tool for people wanting to learn about Utah’s Black history. By looking at the many faces, learning their names, and researching the impact these African Americans have had on the state, Utahns can learn about the legacies they’ve left behind.
