Archiving as Social Justice Practice

UC Berkeley Summer Bridge course sponsored by the College of Environmental Design
July 5-August 10, 2023
Instructor: Lincoln Cushing

"Looking back, immediately behind us is dead ground. We don't see it, and because we don't see it, there is no period so remote as the recent past. The historian's job is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be." - Professor Irwin in 'The History Boys,' 2006.

Knowledge is a moving target - we are surrounded by news, facts, and opinions that often lack true supporting evidence. This course looks at the role of archives and special collections in helping us, and our communities, to better formulate an honest world view.

C132 is a project-based, community-engaged course covering what history is made of. Students learn about the role of conventional and community-based archives and how such institutions support creative and productive scholarship through the provision of primary sources. It's a unique curriculum which combines information management techniques and best practices, the role of citizen-scholars as activists, and the value of unprocessed special collections.

Scanning archival flyers and adding metadata to PDFs

Commons Archive guest lecture -
Dr. Saturu Ned

Online cataloging

Guest lecturer Lisbet Tellefsen

Reviewing and correcting catalog records in the
Oakland Museum of California

Field trip to the Bancroft Library

"As a history major, I am definitely going to need to visit the Bancroft library on multiple occasions throughout my time here at Berkeley. It is extremely refreshing to know that there is a super nice staff at the Bancroft library that is more than willing to help me explore the incredible materials that are housed in their shelves." [Kori]

"I admire the dedication and attention to detail that the staff at the Bancroft exemplify. From hearing them explain the items, their care and passion was evident. Each item was prepared gently with great attention, leaving visitors with quality archives they can look through." [Brianna]

Field trip to Docs Populi archives

"When he explained that he had 30,000 digital images stored, like wow that's crazy. I believe it is so cool that there is a piece of that movement right in front of me. That I can have access to it. It is a present for me." [Andrea]

"I really enjoyed taking a dive into Professor Cushing’s personal collection of vintage posters and artwork. It brought me joy to see just how passionate someone can be about different things, things that I didn't even know existed before taking this class." [Ruby]

"The collection covered a vast variety of topics. During that short period of time, we were able to cover posters from Cuba, local movements at Berkeley, movements about plastic, civil rights, the Chicano movement, and many more." [Brianna]

Field trip to
Freedom Archives

"Having the opportunity to see that these are all real is just inspiring for this generation, and the future generations… I like how realistic these images, flyers, and newspapers are, let’s say that I was in my history class and the professor was giving a lecture. It would be impossible for me to process those details without evidence." [Yolande]

"I wanted to research more about the Mayan genocide that took place in Guatemala, which is known as a rural country that has poor documentation. Coming from a Guatemalan household, it was difficult to research events like this from a personal perspective but on the Freedom Archives website, I was able to discover a pro-feminist article talking about the resilience of the Mayan woman while also criticizing the militarization of the armed forces and the atrocities they have committed." [Harold]

"Books like that just take me back to a different time that I wasn't able to experience yet I feel as if I know exactly what that time was like. Seeing posters from Eritrea and seeing their side of the story of revolution, reading mini pamphlets they made, and seeing meetings about big events in their country happening in the bay area was so cool to see. I know that with the ideas of future projects I want to restore, I know I have the ultimate resource for first-hand artifacts and knowledge." [Tiya]

"Being able to cross reference what I learned to actual artifacts was really cool. Being part of this generation we are always told that we have the world at our fingertips. We have whatever information we want at any point, but being in that room it opened up an entirely new world filled with information that I didn't even know existed." [Ailyn]

"I was fortunate enough to be able to look through some old newspapers from a couple of decades ago in which I spotted a large variety of poems written by women’s liberation groups. In addition to this, I was able to browse through some books that gave me some insight on historical events that I had no clue ever existed. If my visit to the archive taught me anything is that, we have an extensive history which we do not know about." [Dani]