Embedded Files
Steering Committee
Margaret Hangan is a retired Forest Service Archaeologist and Director of Collections for the Verde Valley Archaeology Center and Museum. Margaret earned a BA in 1989 from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA and MA from California State University, Bakersfield in 2003. Her research interests include Black History of the West with an emphasis on Arizona and the Arizona Sheep Industry. Margaret also serves as the President of the Naco Heritage Alliance Board of Directors, the Chair of the Williams Historic Preservation Commission, is a member of the Arizona Site Steward Foundation Board, the Historic Site Review Committee and the NAU School of Forestry Advisory Committee. Lastly Margaret is a founding member of the Arizona Black History and Culture Consortium.
Dr. Allana Zuckerman is a community engaged practitioner and scholar whose work bridges academic research and community-based knowledge production. She currently serves as an Assistant Teaching Professor in Health Sciences and Public Health at Northern Arizona University (NAU). She double majored in Psychology and Africana Studies at Pomona College and continued this work of bridging academia with community based storytelling during her Masters and PhD programs in Community/Organizational Psychology at Georgia State University. Her research has explored how Black families prepare children to navigate racism in educational spaces and how campus racial climate influences Black students’ academic self-concept from a nationwide sample. In 2025, she was awarded the Community-Campus Partnership Award at NAU, a funded award that is allowing her to grow community based work in Flagstaff, Arizona including listening sessions and community based workshops. She collaborates with local organizations to strengthen community-driven initiatives including funding processes, and long-term capacity-building efforts that preserve and sustain community history and culture. Dr. Allana is especially passionate about making research accessible and useful to communities, not just institutions. Through collaboration, writing, and thoughtful use of technology, she works to help build sustainable systems that honor Black history and strengthen community-centered systems of knowledge and growth.
Jessica Salow is the Assistant Archivist of Black Collections at Arizona State University (ASU) Library. She obtained her Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) from the University of Arizona and is an alumni of Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. She is the recipient of the 2022 Archival Innovator Award from the Society of American Archivists for her work with the Community-Driven Archives Initiative ASU Library. In 2023 she was awarded the Catalyst Award for inspiring and igniting transformation and inclusion at ASU. She is an American Library Association’s Emerged Leader Class of 2024 and is currently the President of the Arizona Library Association (AzLA). Her current work focuses on specialized reference, instruction and curation of a robust community-based collection of primary and secondary resources that document the lived experiences of Black people living and thriving in the state of Arizona.
R. Brooks Jeffery is heritage conservation consultant and Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Arizona where he had a 35-year career as a teacher, scholar, and administrator advancing heritage conservation as part of a comprehensive ethic of environmental, cultural, and economic sustainability in places throughout the world. Most recently, Jeffery served as start-up executive director of the non-profit Naco Heritage Alliance where he spearheaded strategic planning efforts and launched the rehabilitation of the 17-acre Camp Naco site, Arizona’s cornerstone of Buffalo Soldier history. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Patronato San Xavier, the non-profit charged with the conservation of the 17th C. Mission San Xavier, a living church on the Tohono O’odham Nation and southern Arizona’s most popular tourist destination.
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