Telling Stories from Montreal's Negro Community Centre Fonds : The Archives as Community-Engaged Classroom

The authors note that working in the classroom alongside teaching faculty is an ideal way to bridge the gap between undergraduate education and archival research and to reach students who might never venture into the archives of their own accord. The authors offer a sustained reflection on one way that historical archives can be placed at the centre of undergraduate education. They also consider how this engagement can open up spaces for public remembrance, particularly for marginalized "source" communities. The authors explain that the ongoing relationship between communities and the archives that they produce is vitally important. Their focus in the article is on the intermediate history course Telling Stories, held in 2017, and developed around Montreal's Negro Community Centre/Charles H. Este Cultural Centre Fonds housed in Concordia University Library's Special Collections. The Negro Community Centre was the hub of Montreal's English-speaking Black community from 1927 until it closed in 1992. The course was timed to coincide with the public launch of this major new archival fonds, giving the students the honour of being the first researchers to ever go through these boxes. They explain that the idea of the course was thus simple: what can we learn from the history contained in these boxes and how can we return this history to the community? The authors maintain that allowing younger generations to make meaning from the archives and leave their marks there is a way to open spaces for new Montreal (hi)stories to be written.

Archivaria: The Journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists

Vol. 89

34-68

Spring 2020

en