The Who Owns Black Data conference, held on March 28-29, 2024, by the Black Beyond Data Ecosystem at Johns Hopkins and Morgan State Universities, was a historic convening will gather a distinguished group of scholars, librarians, activists and archivists to discuss, elucidate, and provide public answers to the question: who owns and controls the Black historical and cultural record?
That question suggests a troubling answer as soon as we pose it. That answer is whispered in the halls of academia and once in a while it surfaces in our writings and conferences. That answer also prompts us to ask other important questions which we hope to address in our conference series: How did we end up here? How do we answer the question of ownership and control in the context of today’s hybrid record, both analog and digital? What can and should we do going forward? Can we tie the question of control over our material inheritance to the movement for reparations for colonial harms and the evils of the trans-Atlantic slave trade? Should Black stakeholders be guaranteed a seat at the decision-making table in matters of the historical and cultural record of Black people? What happens when data about Black people and historical figures is created or curated by people who are not Black, as is the case of many, if not most important sources from the early modern period until the present? What further implications should we consider when that data is commodified, monetized or used as leverage within current regimes of private property? How do we begin to connect these questions to the role that ownership has played in Black History?
Keynotes:
Dorothy Berry, Digital Curator for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Jennifer L. Morgan, professor of History in the department of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU
Bilphena Yahwon, Baltimore-based writer, abolitionist, and restorative practices specialist
Featuring: 10 Million Names – African Diaspora Alliance – Archipelagos of Marronage – Black Louisiana History Incubators – The Black Testimony Project – The Caribbean Digital – The Colored Conventions Project – The Criadas Project – First Blacks in The Americas – Early Caribbean Digital Archive – Freedom on the Move – Haitian Revolutionary Fictions – Ink, Sweat, & Tears – Keywords for Black Louisiana – Kinfolkology – The Nelson Hackett Project – New Generation Scholars – The Registro Project – Remains//An Archive – #slaveryarchive – Smallpox and Slavery – Spread the Word – Texas Domestic Slave Trade Project – The Texas Freedom Colonies Project – (Un)Silencing Slavery – Underwriting Souls – And more!
Sponsors: Black Beyond Data Ecosystem – Diaspora Solidarities Foundation – Mellon Foundation – Morgan State University – Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences – Michigan State University – JHU Center for Africana Studies – JHU School of Medicine and Center for Medical Humanities – JHU Program in Latin American – Caribbean and Latinx Studies (LACLxS) – Johns Hopkins University’s Sheridan Libraries and Museums – National Historic Publications and Records Commission – NoMüNoMü; African Diaspora Alliance – New Generation Scholars/Muse360 – Black Femme Supremacy Film Fest
