Africana Studies asks community to share their stories

The Africana Studies Department is making an online space where stories of New Mexicans can be told. Department Chair Kirsten Buick, Ph.D., was inspired to create the Tell Us Your Stories tab on their website when she came across research a former University of New Mexico student had done on a local homesteader.

"Africana Studies has always been connected to community. But sometimes the community feels disconnected from the university," said Buick. "So as chair, I'm constantly trying to make us visible. I know that there are lots of stories out there, so I want to encourage the community to come to the university in that way."

David Jacobs conducted research as a graduate student in the geography department at UNM. He credits the Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections for providing resources for his research.

The first story to participate in the initiative is that of David "Happy Jack" Jackson, a Black American who moved to the mining boomtown of White Oaks, New Mexico in 1897. According to Jacobs' website, Happy Jack's story, set in New Mexico during its early statehood, radiates a message that still resonates with the lives and conditions of early Black New Mexican homesteaders over a century later.

"Ultimately, promoting stories like this is essential," Jacobs said. "Positive narratives about Black New Mexicans are significantly underrepresented in our state's cultural narrative and amplifying them helps create a more complete and accurate picture of our state's history."

Buick wants the community to think of this project as a repository that won't be taken down, that will be tended to and updated.

"I see it as a temporary alternative to what's happening at the Smithsonian, where Black people in particular gave family treasures to the museum and now it's being censored," Buick said. "I see this as a kind of answer to that to preserve important memories to preserve community."

Read more about Happy Jack on the Africana Studies website. To share a story or photos to be featured on the website, contact Amy Johnson at [email protected].