Process and Progress in Community Driven Archives

Jack Beckford on the Student Health Coalition Legacy Fund

Jack Beckford offers insight into the role the Student Health Coalition Legacy Fund has played in uncovering and supporting ongoing work on issues in Appalachia related to the SHC’s activism in the 1960s and 70s. He lists Appalshop, the Highlander Center, the St. Charles Clinic, and John Gaventa’s research into land ownership as just a …

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Preservation and access of community legacies

Margaret Ecker describes a “fringe benefit” of the archive project as it pertains to the collective memory restoration of community stories, such as those belonging to Howard and Fay Elliot of St. Charles, Va., J.W. and Kate Bradley, Maureen O’Connell, and others whose legacy of activism will (hopefully) now reach a wider public audience. Follow …

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The role of themes and tendrils in packaging the Coalition narrative

John Davis reflects on the process of being involved in the archive project, noting the joy of collectively rediscovering the Coalition narrative and the challenge of packaging it according to over-arching themes and other common threads. Biff Hollingsworth adds that, in addition to themes, the concept of tendrils (or ripples of the SHC work, such …

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Process vs product in community-driven archives

Biff Hollingsworth, Collecting and Public Programming Archivist with the Southern Historical Collection, elaborates on early institutional reluctance to undertake such a non-traditional and labor-intensive archive project. He emphasizes their myriad of considerations, all of which ultimately positioned this partnership as an opportunity to better define guiding principles around community-driven archives. Champion among these was learning …

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The first phone call: Biff Hollingsworth connects with Margaret Ecker

Biff Hollingsworth, Collecting and Public Programming Archivist with the Southern Historical Collection, delineates more of the timeline at the start of UNC’s partnership with the Student Health Coalition. Margaret Ecker recounts their first phone call in early 2013, a conversation which significantly influenced discussions of project plans moving forward at a Coalition gathering just a …

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On the archive project’s first iteration: a documentary film

Jack Beckford notes that prior to any official connection with the Southern Historical Collection, Margaret Ecker and Lark Hayes had decided to make a documentary film about the Coalition story–an initiative born from energy at the 2012 Landon House reunion (among other previous gatherings). Margaret further describes this early iteration of memory restoration and preservation, …

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Early momentum for the archive project: the role of gatherings and collective memory recovery

The Websters discuss the role of Coalition (and other) gatherings in creating momentum for the archive project. John Davis notes how they spurred collective memory recovery and reflection. In reference to a 2009 Center for Health Services (CHS) gathering, Rosie Hammond adds how these reunions were an opportunity to learn of others’ post-Coalition lifetime of …

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