Imagine you are a historian fifty years from now trying to understand the history of the global black freedom struggle during the early 21st century. The hyper-visibility of international black celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, coupled with U.S. government and private support for black capitalist, might lead you to believe that a radical, anti-imperial, anti-capitalist diasporic politics that is associated with earlier periods did not exist. But then you stumble across this archive created by Princeton students in a 2019 class, “From Haiti to Ferguson: The Global Black Freedom Struggle since Slavery.”
In this last History-In-Action assignment, your task is one in archival justice. Identify a person, group, and/or event that represents contemporary radical, anti-imperial diasporic politics. Create an archive for that person, group, and/or event that includes at least three artifacts. You are encouraged to be creative in constructing your archive, including using examples of multimedia (i.e. tweets, instagram posts, memes, etc.) in addition to more traditional sources (i.e. speeches, policy documents, etc.). Each artifact must be accompanied by a 1-2 sentence description identifying what it is and where you found it. Finally, your post must include 1-2 paragraphs that identifies the subject and explains your rationale for the archive. Why did you select the artifacts that you did? What narrative do you think they tell when placed together?
