Monthly Archives: June 2015

May 14, 1961.  Frances Moultrie Howard looks out from a photograph of a horrific event.  The bus on which she and her fellow Freedom Riders were traveling is in flames, set ablaze by a racist mob after leaving Anniston, Alabama.

In Birmingham, riders on a second bus from Anniston are beaten by members of the Ku Klux Klan.    In Nashville, John Lewis and other members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee form a group of volunteers to continue the Freedom Rides.  The young volunteer riders include nine black men and women, two white women, and one white man, James Zwerg.  They are attacked as their bus arrives in Montgomery, Alabama.

As the Klansmen unleash their violence, one rider, James Zwerg, draws attention as the only white man in the group.  A female Freedom Rider, who manages to escape the mob, watches in horror:

“To Lucretia Collins, who witnessed the beating from the backseat of a departing taxicab, the savagery of [Jim] Zwerg’s attackers was sickening. ‘Some men held him while white women clawed his face with their nails,’ she recalled. “And they held up their little children—children who couldn’t have been more than a couple of years old—to claw his face. I had to turn my head because I just couldn’t watch it.’ Eventually Zwerg’s eyes rolled back and his body sagged into unconsciousness. After tossing him over a railing, his attackers went looking for other targets.

Turning to the black Freedom riders huddled near the railing, several of the Klansman rushed forward. The first victim in their path was William Barbee. . . [who] had only a moment to shield his face before the advancing Klansmen unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks that dropped him to the payment. While one Klansman held him down, a second jammed a jagged piece of pipe into his ear, and a third bashed him in the skull with a baseball bat, inflicting permanent damage that shortened his life. Moments later, [John] Lewis went down, struck by a large wooden Coca-Cola crate. ‘I could feel my knees collapse and then nothing,’ he recalled.”

James Zwerg says from his hospital bed that the rides will continue.  He seeks for all the simple ability to travel together as citizens of the United States of America.

The account I quoted is from Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, by Raymond Arsenault.  Historian Taylor Branch wrote of the attack on Zwerg in Parting the Waters,

“As they steadily knocked out his teeth, and his face and chest were streaming blood, a few adults on the perimeter put their children on their shouldes to view the carnage. A small girl asked what the men were doing, and her father replied, ‘Well, they’re really carrying on.'”

Another historian, James Cobb, blogged at the History News Network about the reaction of one of his student’s to a visit by Branch to his class in 2006:

“. . .  a freshman in my 300-seat US History Since 1865 course came in to discuss her exam with one of the graders and proceeded to work herself into a semi-hissy over the fact that we had spent four class periods (one of them consisting of a visit from Taylor Branch) discussing the civil rights movement.

‘I don’t know where he’s getting all of this,’ she complained, ‘we never discussed any of this in high school.’ One might have let the matter rest here as simply an example of a high school history teacher’s sins of omission being visited on the hapless old history prof. had the student not informed the TA in an indignant postcript, ‘I’m not a Democrat! I don’t think I should have to listen to this stuff!’”

In June 2013, John Lewis spoke at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  AOTUS David S. Ferriero welcomed him to the McGowan Theater, where I was among the members of the audience.  Among the other people present was archivist Darlene McClurkin, pictured with Lewis in the lobby.

I wrote here about the event that

“Lewis’s presentation showed that one can be passionately engaged, and far from detached, yet eschew heated or exclusionary rhetoric.  He spoke with deep emotion of his ancestors who had been slaves in America, of the right to vote, and the impact of segregation during his lifetime.  In describing violence and his belief in non-violence, Lewis observed that rhetorical violence has an impact, too.”

In the same theater at NARA where I heard John Lewis speak, last Friday I heard Stanley Nelson discuss his work in documentary film, including Freedom Riders.  And Freedom Summer.    The stories matter.  In his opening remarks, David Ferriero noted the poignant timing of the symposium, as we reflect on the tragedy in Charleston.

The records matter.   We need to protect them, preserve them, share the voices in them.

Above the McGowan Theater, the National Archives uses documents and photographs from the civil rights movement in a permanent exhibit, Records of Rights.   David Ferriero described the team effort at his blog

“Archivists, conservators, photographers, curators, designers, editors,
registrars, and more have all contributed their hard work and expertise to
building “Records of Rights.” I would especially like to recognize the curators, Bruce Bustard, Jen Johnson, Michael Hussey, Alice Kamps, Corinne Porter, and Darlene McClurkin.”

I attended the ribbon cutting on the evening of December 11, 2013 (A’Lelia Bundles, David Ferriero, below).  I was deeply affected by the exhibit.  The wall displays and records on the interactive table offer evidence of passionate advocacy for the rights of minorities and the disadvantaged or abused.    I told David I was proud of the NARA team.

Andrew Ferguson offered a different view of the exhibit in August 2014 in an essay in a conservative publication, The Weekly Standard:

“These days historians are consumed by their indignation at American injustice. Even the most ulcerated mossbacks have come to see that the traditional study of U.S. history omitted many indispensable elements—to cite one fashionable example, the decisive use of ‘colored’ troops during the Civil War. Historians have been so busy correcting these omissions that they’ve lost the thread of the main story they’re supposed to be correcting. ‘Records of Rights’ is all corrective, a bill of grievances presented by the curators to the hapless tourists who stumble in from the glare on Constitution Avenue.

Like Gaul, ‘Records of Rights’ is divided into three parts. Each part concerns an oppressed group. The first, ‘Bending Towards Justice,’ depicts the oppression of African Americans. The next part, ‘Remembering the Ladies,’ depicts the oppression of women. The third, ‘Yearning to Breathe Free,’ depicts the oppression of immigrants. . . .Under the section “Equal Rights,” we find ‘stories about Jim Crow laws, violence against Asian immigrants, and discriminatory voting laws.’ Under ‘Rights to Freedom and Justice,’ we find ‘stories about slavery and other forms of servitude, the Ku Klux Klan and mob violence, and Japanese internment.’ American history is truly a glorious pageant.”

Ferguson looks at changes to physical access to the National Archives very differently than I do, as I explained in “Climbing the steps, working the steps.”  Recent events in Charleston led me to re-read his essay.  And to think about how differently we define idealism.

Ferguson found that the “curators take care that any glimmer of American idealism is quickly snuffed out.”  But to me, as the child of displaced persons from Europe who fled totalitarian rule, it is the passionate advocacy on behalf of minorities and the abused which represents defining moments of American idealism.

John Lewis’s continued belief in the power of non-violence and the bonds of blessed community.  James Zwerg speaking from a hospital bed of a basic right of American citizens to ride together on an interstate bus journey, sitting together regardless of race.

Their struggles–and the price men and women such as Jimmie Lee Jackson and Viola Liuzzo paid–are in the records held in the National Archives and other cultural heritage organizations.   Seeing those records enhances the value of the Charters of Freedom on display above the Records of Rights exhibit.   When we look at the Charters, the Records of Rights, we’re looking at the struggle for justice, change, better lives, progress.

We need to respect what we don’t know about the lives of others.  Their pain, their sorrows, their concerns.  Their reticence.  What they feel when they work with records that document horrific events.  What they endure in their professional lives.  Their personal lives.  What shapes them.

When I wrote about hearing John Lewis speak in 2013, I focused on community. A theme I often write about here and on the Archives & Archivists Listserv.

We come together online, on Twitter, at blogs, and sometimes still in old-school forums such as Listservs.   As a thread on change management on the A&A Listserv yesterday reminded me, not all workplace issues can be aired out fully in public.  Places where hiring officials, bosses, subordinates, colleagues might see what people say.

We pick and choose what we reveal about ourselves.  I often write about my former employer, the National Archives.  I don’t write about other parts of Washington.   There are things in all our lives we silently witness.

I prefer to share what inspires me–the Archives.  The public programs, with John Lewis, Stanley Nelson, scholars, historians, present and former government officials, that I describe here, often with great joy.

Events that recognize achievement, such as that of Robert Edsel in sharing the story of the Monuments Men.

“Know Your Records” presentations, such as the one at which NARA officials such as Dr. Tina Ligon look at records that tell some of the stories of the civil rights movement.  Or officials such as Neil Carmichael (below) discuss the disclosure review and declassification of records.

Pride in the good people I know at NARA who take on tough challenges as they strive to preserve and share access to knowledge.

In January 2015, Kathleen Roe, President of the Society of American Archives, observed of a comment I had shared on the Listserv that

“I was interested in your comment about ‘the psychology of archival and research work and how people meet challenges as individuals, especially when dealing with difficult topics or personally and/or historically harrowing events;.   I’ve worked with members of some of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nations that were forcibly relocated.  One group came together for a week-long visit, and found some very disturbing information.

After each long day of research, they would dust themselves with sweet grass to, as they explained, counteract the “evil” they had encountered in the records.   At the end of their stay, their shaman offered to do a blessing ceremony for our staff to counteract the negativity that they felt we are always encountering in our work with the records–it provided a great opportunity to see how others perceive the impact of working with documentation of difficult events and times.”

I responded with a blog post about “Documentation of difficult events and times.”

“That I often refer to the joy I feel at the transcendence of the archival mission–the sharing of knowledge of our history–doesn’t mean I think what is in those records always is uplifting.  As Kathleen notes, the findings can be disturbing.   Dismaying.  Harrowing.  Tragic.

The impact of terrible experiences or knowledge of disturbing events is individual.  That the shaman offered to do a blessing ceremony for the archival staff “to counteract the negativity” points to the light filled side of the reaction spectrum.  To the beauty of the human heart.   The gesture seems kind because it stems from empathy.  Understanding, empathy, kindness are key components in bonding people together in a workplace or a profession.

When we are lucky to find such support, we recognize the effort at understanding that lies behind such gestures.  . . .

Such an offer truly is a gift.”

In January 2011, President Barack Obama said after the shooting of Gabby Giffords,

“Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, “When I looked for light, then came darkness.”

He also told us,

“We recognize our own mortality, and we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame -– but rather, how well we have loved and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.”

Archives hold records of evil, of hatred, of horrifying acts of inhumanity.

Of struggle, of idealism tempered yet not discarded.

Of perseverance, of hope.  Of nobility.

Archives remind us of those who sacrificed so much, in different ways, to make the lives of other people better.   We strive to preserve the records, past, present, future.  And to share them, as we can.

Doing so is an act of love, a way to honor the stories of those who gave so much.  And who still are giving so much — now.

When I woke up around 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning,  I looked at Twitter on my phone to see @capitalweather’s latest updates.  A series of violent storms had rolled through the Washington area with flash flood warnings in effect until the early hours of the morning.    When I went to bed Saturday evening, I still was seeing Tornado warnings (relatively rare here) for some parts of the metropolitan area.   I didn’t hear thunder any more and I thought I’d put down the phone and fall asleep again.  But I didn’t.

The storms had passed but I noticed a tweet where Jarrett Drake wrote, “Absolute must read for archivists.”   Jarrett linked to a post by Bergis Jules on “The narrative of terrorism in #Charleston.”  In the post, Bergis described how he turned to Twitter as news broke of the murder in Charleston, South Carolina, of nine African-Americans in a bible study class in a church basement.   Bergis wrote:

“There were several reasons I closely followed the events on Twitter. Of course I wanted to interact with others and share my own feelings about it. Twitter was also a comforting space in many ways, as others shared how this news was affecting them. I could tell early on that this latest attack felt very personal to many, especially African Americans, because we live with the constant awareness that racist violence against us can happen at any moment. These two tweets by @jmddrake were especially powerful for me.”

He continued,

“But as an archivist and someone interested in documenting how African Americans build community and share experiences about these types of events in digital spaces, I was also interested in seeing how quickly reactions would grow, what would be said, and if that would affect when and how major media outlets picked up the story. I was particularly interested to see if the narrative of terrorism would take hold in relation to this racist act of violence.”

As I read his powerful essay, I thought about what I heard legendary filmmaker Stanley Nelson say at a documentary film symposium honoring him that I attended on Friday.  There were many moving moments during the evening in the McGowan Theater at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  AOTUS David S. Ferriero noted in his opening remarks the “poignant timing” of the long scheduled AFI Docs program in a week when “we’re reflecting on the tragedy” in Charleston.    I came away from the event thinking about archives and records and voices preserved and not preserved.

For me, two points stood out in the program.  One occurred during the film excerpts, the other during the conversation between Nelson and Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday that followed.  (Video link here; jump to the 13:02 minute mark for the start in this unedited initial version.)  One of my iPhone photos is below.  You can see photographer Bruce Guthrie’s better pictures of the event here.

One of the clips shown prior to the conversation on stage was from Nelson’s 2003 documentary film, The Murder of Emmett Till.   Another from Freedom Riders (2010).  Archival footage and interviews powerfully conveyed some of what it was like to live then in the United States of America.  Nelson later described on stage use of rich resources at the National Archives and the Library of Congress.

As black and white film footage rolled of white Southern men standing on a street corner, an older African-American man recounted how “you had to step off the sidewalk” when a white woman passed by.  He said of the white men in the South in the Jim Crow era that they looked as if they constantly were on alert against threats from African-Americans.   And added that it was racist white men who represented the greatest threats against their fellow countrymen.

Hornaday’s interview with Nelson on stage provided fascinating, sometimes moving, insights into his life and behind the scenes glimpses into his craft.   Most of Nelson’s films have third-party points of view.  He said he only has made one personal documentary, A Place of Our Own (2004), produced a year after the death of his mother.  PBS notes in its description of Nelson’s film that

“While summers in Oak Bluffs brought community and celebration, it also served as a reminder of the price of African American affluence in a racist society. Weekends filled with dinner parties and tennis tournaments were often a fleeting victory that faded for many on Monday mornings, especially for the men who returned to their professional lives back in the real world, outside of the sanctuary of the island.”

As he talked about the process of working out how to approach narratives in his films, Nelson described some of the debates behind the scenes.   I tweeted one of them:  “Nelson: debate abt how 2 show, talk in film about things ‘you don’t talk about in public. Things we do 2 make white people feel comfortable.'”  The filmmaker told Hornaday that he is in the early stages of preparing a documentary on historically black colleges and universities.

I first saw Stanley Nelson a year ago at the National Archives when he took questions after a screening of Freedom Summer.   I described the event in a post about “Open Community, Closed Society.”  And looked in my post at challenges in information professionals’ discussions of archival and records issues.  The National Archives’ photo shows Nelson answering questions from the audience.  Microphones ensure that the voices of members of the public who ask questions are recorded for the archived video.

In his blog post, Bergis Jules looked at the use of hashtags in discussions of the murders in Charleston.    Many archivists (I among them), stayed up late on Wednesday evening.  Bergis explained that

“In an attempt to capture some of the reactions and answer some of these questions, Ed Summers and I started collecting tweets tagged with #Charleston and #CharlestonShooting. We’re both interested in archiving social media and the potential for it to add a rich new layer to the work we do as archivists. After some very early analysis we wanted to share just some of what we are finding in the tweets. There are some important issues to consider for archivists as we continue to think about building collections and documenting historical events in this space.”

He pointed to the issue of dynamic content at static news URLs, something I’ve noticed also with much lesser events when I share links here, on Twitter, or Facebook.  Bergis shows some examples of changing content and notes:

“Usually archivists make the case for Web archives by drawing attention to rampant (and very real) problems with link rot. But as researchers such as Zittrain and Van de Sompel are noting, reference rot is also a huge and important issue. In this case what appears to be syndicated content from Reuters at Yahoo News, at a single URL, has radically changed in a very short period of time.”

At the time I wrote about seeing Freedom Summer at NARA last June, the Society of American Archivists was looking at the possibility of a Code of Conduct.  My post about community looked at several issues, including some then roiling the Archives & Archivists Listserv.

I described in a later post a conversation my late sister once had with an African-American colleague at NARA, who told her, “I go home to a very different place than you.”  They talked about those different places face to face.   Sometimes, information professionals try to talk online, as well.   What we’re saying is filtered in various ways.  As I observed in my post about different places, creation of “safe space,” and Codes of Conduct, a conservative information profession tweeted last year:  “I want to weep for the future of archives ‘professionals’ & all this ‘diversity privilege’ crap. #shutupandgettowork.”

When I wrote about open communities and closed societies last June, I was taking a break from the Archives & Archivists Listserv but soon resubscribed.  Since then, I’ve raised questions there and at my blog about records management and the impact of competing elements.  Among them are accountability and institutional memory–understanding what happened and why–and risk mitigation, reduction of exposure to litigation.

In a post earlier this year about “Curation, selection, silence, understanding,” I wrote about what Jarrett Drake said about the agency of silence.  He quoted from an article by Rodney Carter which looked at how “Silence is not necessarily a mark of victimization. It can, in fact, be a form of self-assertion; it can be an active resistance.”

Then I turned to the role of the records manager, who works with officials to determine what is record, what is non-record, what is permanently valuable, what can be destroyed.   And the conversations I’ve tried for years to start about the impact of not resolving competing elements.  Postings where I’ve sought bridge builders in records professions at various forums.   Silence as withholding, perhaps, more so than resistance.

I observed of the themes I’ve tried to talk about on Listservs, with little success, that

“A person who decides not to memorialize his or her actions ‘for the record’ or to limit retention of or destroy permanently valuable records is taking the first act of curation in the records we acquire as archivists.   This can wipe out the voices of the powerful as well as disempowered.  Some of the records most vulnerable to decisions based on ‘nobody needs to see this’ are those that involve people, more so than policy.  Records which show executives’ reactions to operational, stakeholder, human resource and labor issues.”

That includes handling of diversity and equal employment opportunity issues in the workplace.   Such issues are more vulnerable than most to warnings from corporate counsel and others–“don’t write it down” and “keep the records for as short a time as possible because they would be discoverable in litigation.”

Depending on the organization, the ranks of the people involved, the content of the records, some have enduring value, others not.  Some may be destroyed properly.  Some may not.  The effect on history of these decisions rarely is discussed.  Silence surrounds some of the silences.

Brad Houston’s December 2013 post at the SAA Records Management Roundtable blog, “Archives/RM Ethics, Co-opting, and Digital Fireplaces” is one of the few places I’ve seen an information professional look at them.  Brad wrote about the destruction of colonial records in the 1950s and 1960s and Mark Greene’s article about archival responsibilities related to social justice.

He included a tweet from me where I asked, “Does RMRT discuss ethical issues 4 RMs due 2 some rec creators’ desire 2 ‘pre-emptively sanitize’ history b4 reaches archives?”  Unfortunately, Brad’s article got no traction in traditional forums.

This past week, members of the 2015 cohort attended the Archives Leadership Institute (ALI) at Luther College.    I gave a shout out on the Archives & Archivists Listserv to some of the attendees, including Rebecca Goldman, @derangedescribe.   She tweeted on the morning of June 18th, “So many problems in our profession boil down to: we’re not willing to have conversations that make us uncomfortable.  #ALI15.”  

At ALI, Rebecca gave a demonstration of Twitter.    I thought back to last year, when one of the longtime A&A subscribers posted about exploring a medium she hadn’t yet used:

“I’m looking for some constructive and useful twitter archival feeds to follow.  Some that I have found seem to be just another venue for snarky criticism of colleagues, and I just don’t have time to waste with that. What would people recommend for thoughtful and useful comments and links that create positive change for the profession?”

Some people nominated themselves.  Some nominated others.   I focused on the importance of hearing “the negative” as well as “the positive,” observing that “even a critic can become ‘an architect of trust.'”

Power outages affect understanding of the history of the United States.  We need to look beyond the aging network, the old grid.   To understand the power of Social Media during breaking news.  And most of all, in choosing whom to follow, to understand and accept the ability of social networks to move us beyond our comfort zones.

A blogger observed earlier this week, “You cannot bear witness until you learn how to listen as much as you learn how to speak.”

As Jarrett Drake observed in a tweet yesterday about not speaking for others, but letting them choose how, when, and where to speak and what they–not you–need to say, sometimes you have to “stfu and listen.”

Thursday evening, I walked in Washington between downpours due to thunderstorms that rolled through the metropolitan area.   Right before I reached the White House, I read on my iPhone a courageous, moving blog essay by an archivist who also has records manager duties.   The writer was reacting to the horrific murder on Wednesday evening of nine African-Americans at a bible study session in a church in South Carolina.  The man who committed this terrorist act was captured on Thursday.  News reports suggest he is a white supremacist.

The archivist-records manager shared reactions that reflected an historical perspective and a personal one.

“….here we are, repeating everything that much of America would like to think it solved decades ago. In particular, that an attack on a black church is terrifying precisely because it cannot be alienated from its historical context; black churches were routinely targeted during the civil rights movement, with the most horrifying act of white violence against black church-goers culminating in the deaths of four little girls.”

After listing recent murders of people of various faiths and ethnicity in churches in the last decade, the writer gave a personal assessment of the gunmen in many of these cases:

“We know in this country that one of the largest threats of domestic terrorism comes from right-wing extremists. These extremists are overwhelmingly disaffected white men who direct their anger at people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, and non-Christian faiths. But what we talk about when we talk about terrorism and community violence does not seem to indicate that we take threats of domestic terrorism carried out by white men seriously. We perpetuate white privilege by treating white gunmen as lone wolves, or people who had ‘mental issues,’ while we hold entire communities responsible to higher standards. The point is, white privilege gives white people the permission to be judged as individuals while it does not afford the same to others.”

And then she asked the question that led me to stop on my journey up Pennsylvania Avenue.

“What does it do to people’s spiritual health to have to contemplate their own physical safety while spending time at their congregation?”

The storm that had just passed through the DC area had been especially violent.  The break in the weather didn’t last long.

After stopping at the White House, I looked up the street to where in 1972 the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP)–Richard Nixon–had its headquarters.  A reminder of the political world.  A complex place which doesn’t show up in a comprehensive way in Federal Records Act and Presidential Records Act materials due to exemption from record keeping requirements  Yet there were glimpses of that world in the records I once processed for disclosure as an employee of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

The contrasts in the sky were even stronger as the sun set.   More rain was on the way.

As I walked, I thought about the archivist-records manager’s essay and about the election of 2008.  And how I stood in the basement of a church in the suburbs of Washington.  And listened to an aging white man of European background tell me that no one who voted for Barack Obama should take communion in the church in which we both were members.   One reason he offered was that Obama was not a Christian.  I responded that the candidate (this was before the election) was as much a Christian as he or I.

After Barack Obama was elected, the family email account (not my individual one), was bombarded with hard-right messages directed against the President and against Democrats.  I responded that I’ve spent my entire career working with the records of government.  That my field of specialty as a historian is the modern presidency.

And that my views of this president, and others of both parties–mentioned in some of the messages–did not match his cartoonish villification of one side and deification of the other.  And that what he was doing was a harmful type of discourse that perpetuated toxic thinking.  I eventually marked the messages Spam, sending them to a junk folder rather than the family in-box.

The man who talked to me in the church social hall tried to goad me. He told me that if Obama won (our conversation took place in October 2008), “the blacks will riot in Washington.”  I replied, “No, you are wrong.”

I found antidotes to that type of thinking in my own family.  My mother is a moderate Republican as I once was before turning Independent in 1989.   She said with equanimity after Obama won re-election in 2012, “I’m all right with that.  He hasn’t done a bad job.”

Some of the antidotes in January 2009 came online.  Not always where you might expect.  Frank Gannon, a former Nixon associate, wrote about walking on the National Mall the day before the Inauguration.

I met and had lunch with Gannon and a National Archives colleague, Dick McNeill in the early 1980s.  I’m sure he remembers Dick McNeill, the audiovisual supervisor who helped him in his research.  I doubt Gannon remembers me.  I was working with the Nixon tapes then and, of course, only the 12-1/2 hours used in the Watergate trials then were public.

Gannon’s January 2009 essay, archived at the Nixon Foundation’s site, is poignant to re-read now.  It reflected a sense of optimism about an era of good feelings.

“Conor Friedersdorf remembers what a pain it was to live with a liberal roommate who watched Keith Olbermann every night, and would subsequently sulk around in a pissed-off mood. Friedersdorf too got a negative contact buzz from the show. He writes: ‘It seems to me that Olbermann’s show often brought out the worst impulses in people: petulance, self-righteousness, and blind anger at ‘the other side.’

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been keeping track of a trend among friends around my age (late thirties to mid-forties). Eight of us (so far) share something in common besides our conservatism: a deep frustration over how our parents have become impossible to take on the subject of politics. Without fail, it turns out that our folks have all been sitting at home watching Fox News Channel all day – especially Glenn Beck’s program.”

What archivists mean when they express concern about diversity is how to encourage the preservation and donation of records reflecting under-represented groups.  At times, people outside the field  seem to misunderstand the process by which archives take in records.

As I explained in an off list message to a subscriber to the Archives & Archivists Listserv in 2010, archives, especially in the federal government, do not result from compilation of artificial collections.  They reflect what an agency, department, organization generated as records in the course of its operations.   Even with donated records, you get what the individual collected, then selected to convey through deed of gift.

As a historian, an archivist, I often find myself reminding readers of our humanity.  In my last blog post, I wrote of the Records of Rights exhibit (ribbon cutting below) at the National Archives that

“And in those records of rights there are songs, as well.  Songs of struggle–painful, grieving, despairing at times.  And of accomplishment–joyous, exhilarating.  Heartfelt songs.   We need to listen to them, strive to preserve as many as we can.”

I added, “Amidst the singing I hear in the archival and records communities,  there are silences.   Gaps.  As there also are silences in historical records.”

Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard criticized the Records of Rights exhibit as being “contemptuous” of “the country’s patrimony.”  But I believe we need more reminders of the need to keep working the steps.

We need to understand also that while we seek to humanize, others dehumanize.   I thought about that as I paused in front of the White House yesterday after reading the archivist-records manager’s essay.  The concluding paragraph of the thoughtful blog post urged us to listen:

“One of the most insidious responses you see whenever a national tragedy occurs is a rush to tell people not to politicize it. The problem is that bearing witness — acknowledging other people’s pain and agony — cannot be separated from “politics.” If a central article of faith is to do unto others, you have to square that with recognizing how privilege, systemic bigotry, and structural violence is used over and over to hurt communities who have asked you to recognize injustice time and time again. You cannot do unto others unless you recognize what is being done to others. You cannot bear witness until you learn how to listen as much as you learn how to speak.”

Yet there are elements in political culture that depend on not listening.   As former Archivist John W. Carlin observed in January 2015, binary thinking can affect professional problem solving.   Some types of political success depend on “othering” fellow citizens.  This has coarsened  discourse and leached into discussions of who we are.  And as I’ve seen online at times, into discussions of records, archives, and history, as well.

Roger Stone is a political operative who was a student at The George Washington University in 1972.   He took a job at CREEP that same year and began a long career in a political world which rarely is documented in archives.  A world whose ethos you sometimes see online.

After former NARA Nixon Presidential Library director Tim Naftali appeared yesterday in a CNN series about the 1970s, Roger Stone tweeted to him:   “Nixon was a great President, you are a duplicitious little fag.”  You can read the rest of Stone’s NSFW Tweet to Tim Naftali here.

I’ve been lucky, I mostly engage with people who act as professionals regardless of how they vote.  I greatly respect archivists I know at NARA who hold diverse political views: conservative, moderate, liberal, Republican, Independent, Democrat.  But whose personal political views never show up as they carry out their responsibilities in diverse records related functions.  And rarely even on Facebook or the in-person lunchtime or dinner conversations I enjoy with them.

I’ve had it easy. There have been moments of dehumanization during my career but they are minor in comparison to the challenges faced by oppressed people who go home to a very different place than I.   One, which had significant impact on some of us, occurred in 1992 and affected my boss (pictured with me and Tim Naftali at NARA in 2012) and archival cohort.

Another, smaller, reminded me of what happens at times to outspoken female professionals online.  A message a man posted on the Archives & Archivists Listserv this January reduced me and my deceased twin sister to subjects of unwarranted sexual innuendo.   The Code of Conduct and revised Terms of Participation led it to be deleted by the Society of American Archivists, which administers the List.

As a nation, we rely not just on evolving laws, as visiting the National Archives reminds us.  But also on our very different, individual moral compasses.  Our personal Code of Conduct.

President Obama was right when he said in Arizona in January 2011 after the Gaby Giffords shooting, ‘We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another, that’s entirely up to us.'”

We can “represent.”  And listen.  Listen, above all.  As the archivist-records manager reminds us, “You cannot do unto others unless you recognize what is being done to others. You cannot bear witness until you learn how to listen as much as you learn how to speak.”