Collaboration History
Since 2015, Oberlin students and faculty have been visiting Africatown and developing relationships of respect and reciprocity. The Africatown Collaboration is a community history project between Oberlin College and Africatown residents and organizations. In this collaboration, we seek to center community direction and vision through ethical practices of research. This includes a dual-consent process, community guidance on interviews, and careful transcript review. Students in the Africatown Collaboration actively work to build long-lasting relationships with the community members. In the development of the Digital Archive, edited and transcribed oral histories are indexed and tagged according to the Library of Congress standards to ensure that the rich history of Africatown is preserved to counteract the suppression of these events from historical memory and to empower the traditions and experiences of the Africatown residents. The goal of the Digital Archive is to support Africatown’s intellectual sovereignty over its history and make it accessible to the descendants and residents of Africatown, the general public, and academic researchers alike. In this relationship, Oberlin students add to a growing collection of work dedicated to the preservation of Africatown’s history, legacy, and ongoing flourishing.