Reconnecting with the Roots of the Black Press with Brandon Nightingale
About This Episode
We are just five years from the bicentennial anniversary of the Black press.
Freedom’s Journal was founded March 16, 1827 in Lower Manhattan, New York by John Brown Russwurm, the first African American graduate of Bowdoin College, and the third Black person to graduate from the halls of an American college or university.
Our guest this week refers to the Journal as a mouthpiece of the Black movement, an artifact of Black history that not only represents the place of the movement that has been in motion for hundreds of years in this country, but a marker of just how far that movement has come in the many years since.
Brandon Nightingale is a historian and the Black Press Archives digitization project manager at the Moorland Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. Brandon's project: to research and document the history of the Black press.
The Black Press Archive was started at Howard in 1973, donated by the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Now, fifty years on, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation has gifted the Archive $2 million to digitize the historic collection. Brandon kicks off season 7 of Mission Forward with a conversation on the importance of protecting the voices of the Black press and sharing them with the world. Our great thanks to Brandon for sharing his experience and enthusiasm with us this week.
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Brandon Nightingale:
Very soon, in about five years, we'll be coming up ... well, I guess four now, we'll be coming up on 200 years of the anniversary of the Black press. So this was started in 1827 in New York with the Freedoms Journal. It was a group of Black people that came together and decided that they wanted to voice their opinions and get that message out and spread. Since then, it's just provided ... a lot of people call it the mouthpiece, or I've seen it referred to as a mouthpiece of the movement, essentially. And so when you think about the Black press, I think about Ida B. Wells and her significant contributions and just all the different publishers that have came through. And what I really love is that ... and that's what this project ... we're starting to highlight, is that a lot of these publications are still around in a lot of these areas.
And I don't think a lot of people know about it, specifically African Americans. One thing I did when I got on the project was as I hired my staff, I had them pick their own publisher that we have in the collection. And I'm having them follow that publisher throughout their time here. And so that has been amazing for them to share some of the things that they've gotten out of that. So yes, it's so important. It was important, it is important, and it will be important moving forward, when you talk about just that Black perspective, that Black voice in the world. And you talk about newspapers, right, it covers so much, but this always gives a different perspective than the traditional white perspective.
Carrie Fox:
Hi, there, and welcome to the Mission Forward podcast, where each week we bring you a thought-provoking and perspective-shifting conversation on the power of communication. I'm Carrie Fox, your host and CEO of Mission Partners, a social impact communications firm and certified B Corporation.
And that at the top of this episode today was the voice of Brandon Nightingale. Brandon is a historian and the Black Press Archives digitization project manager at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, which is in the Founders Library at Howard University. Quick backstory, I heard Brandon speak at the opening of the Howard University Center for Journalism and Democracy earlier this year. And when I tell you I was intrigued, it is such an understatement. I went up and found him right after his presentation and asked if he would come on and helped me launch this season of Mission Forward.
So no surprise, I have built this season around wanting to start this conversation, and soon you will find out why. But let me just tell you a quick bit more as we get into this. Brandon is doing some of the most interesting work that I have heard of in a long, long time. He is researching and documenting the history of the Black press. He's going to tell us more about why that work matters, his personal journey of the story, and the possibilities of what is to come. So stay tuned for an incredible conversation with Brandon Nightingale. We'll see you on the other side.
Brandon Nightingale:
Yeah, and thank you for having me, Carrie. You were one of the many people that came up to me after the Democracy Summit when Hannah Nikole-Jones opened that Center for Journalism and Democracy. And I mean, it's just been taking off since. And that's where we officially released the project. But yeah, how did I get to the project? That's a very interesting question. So by trade, I'm a historian. I went to University of Central Florida, got my undergrad and my master's in history, master's specifically in public history. And I also have a library of science degree from Florida State University.
But really, just that passion for history actually happened for me in 2017. That's when it sort of really kicked off for me. I got a chance to intern in Washington, D.C. at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian. And that's when I realized, "Okay, this thing here, I can really see myself doing this and being surrounded by so many memory-keepers, especially of these African American history memory-keepers." I was just blown away. And that's what sort of propelled my career. And here we are five years or now going on six years from that time in 2017, and I find myself in Washington, D.C. again, but this time at Howard University.
And so when it came down to last year around this time, I was applying to PhD programs, wasn't sure where I was going to get into. And I got into Howard, but they actually weren't offering any funding. If you're a student at Howard, you know how this story plays out. They don't traditionally offer too much funding. There are different ways, I just missed out on some opportunities and wasn't able to get anything. And so I just knew I had to be at Howard, I had to be in D.C. I mean, I'd gotten into Florida State and I'd gotten into University of South Carolina, but Howard was ... I just knew it.
So I began to apply for jobs on campus, knowing that a lot of schools offer tuition remission. And the Black Press Archives was one of the jobs that I applied for. They actually had their archivist position posted, but I didn't get that one. And I was the university archivist at Bethune-Cookman prior to my time coming to Howard. So I applied and I got in that way. And I was able to defer my studies for a year. So I start the PhD in history in the fall of this year, so very excited about that. And as far as ... again, it's sort of two birds in one stone, because I needed something to pay for my education, and this was the way to do it.
But aside from that, just the opportunity to lead a project that is so important ... When you look at the history of this specific project, this was something that the collection, the Black Press Archive, this was something that started in 1973. The collection was donated by the National Newspapers Publishers Association, otherwise known as NNPA. And since then, Howard has sort of kept ... and actually, we're coming up on 50 years of that time. That was also the same time that Moorland-Spingarn became an official research center. And so we're coming up with 50 years of that.
And so you look at that time, and now almost 50 years, Howard has been given $2 million to digitize this historic newspaper collection. I mean, it is just a dream come true. When you talk about the folks I've already met, the folks I've been in contact with, just the folks that come in and out of Moorland, it's truly a dream come true. And I wouldn't want to be any other place. And actually, this is the last thing I'll say, this is actually leading me into what is probably going to be my dissertation. I think it would just make sense if it was going to be something around the Black press. I have all these resources right here at the palm of my hands. It would only make sense to do something around the Black press. What that something is, I'm not sure yet. But that's why we go to school and we figure it out.
Carrie Fox:
Brandon, I can only imagine what you are going to have your hands on, maybe technically not have your hands on because of how delicate and fragile they are, but how much you will be seeing things that people haven't seen in years and years and years. And I'm guessing what NNPA handed over to you was not already beautifully digitized.
Brandon Nightingale:
No, no. Oh, definitely not. Definitely not.
Carrie Fox:
So you are looking at truly original copies of Black newspapers.
Brandon Nightingale:
Yeah.
Carrie Fox:
And tell us more what you think you're going to have and how you're going to go through this process of digitizing it.
Brandon Nightingale:
Yeah. So for me, I can't really get too caught up in the actual content. My focus is making sure we meet our deadlines. And also, we're highlighting things that we're coming across as we do, and formulating content for our social media channels. And as we look up at what the website is going to look like ... because the project was written under the guidelines that about 60% is made available to the public of the collection. So what makes the cut? That's something we have to think about now as we're going through these articles. And like you said, because half of the materials that we have is on microfilm and then the other half is the actual physical newspapers.
And so to start off, what we're doing is we're starting off with some of the more present papers, because those are more easier to scan. So we have a higher sort of standard of what a good scan looks like. And then we're going to dig into some of the old papers. So far the oldest we've came across has been 1999. And to be honest, there's a lot of good stuff you can pull from that as far as content-wise, anniversaries that we celebrate during that time. It's so much. Because you're talking about newspapers, everything is going to be covered. There is no connection that we cannot really make or pull from. So that's the beauty of it.
It is a challenging task because we can't focus on every single thing and every single article. But my main focus is laying the foundation, making things all right, so that way we can take, like you're saying, those original documents, and hopefully what we see in front of us is what the audience is going to see when it's published on our website. Having the physical does help because we love it, but we want to be able to take the physical and take that experience to the average researcher or whoever taps into our website when it's all finished.
Carrie Fox:
If you think back even further in your life to what prompted you to go down this path of studying history and ultimately what really spurred that experience that you had at the National African American Museum that you thought, "I'm going to dig into this as my career, as where I take my next act here." What was it, if you think back, about the moments you had, the experiences you had, the stories that were shared with you, that have helped guide your path?
Brandon Nightingale:
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. If you don't have a reason in this profession, you're probably not going to last long. You're probably going to get overwhelmed, because it's that reason that keeps me going, keeps me focused. So the reason for me, the thing about the internship at the African American Museum, I was there under the guidance of the then-curator of the military history exhibit, Dr. Krewasky Salter. And funny story, I only got that job because I went to college with his son. And so I was able to reach out to him. He wasn't able to pay me because he didn't really need an intern, but he was like, "Look, this experience will change your life. You do what you got to do." Matter of fact, I remember kind of lying and telling him I'd already found a place, because I really wanted to get out there, even though I hadn't found a place or anything just yet. But that was just showing my passion for wanting to get out there and wanting to just get an understanding for this profession.
So it wasn't until I got out there and the people that were ... I mean, the museum had just sort of opened around this time. And so the people that I was running in contact with, I mean, it was just amazing. But the one thing that stuck with me and has carried me on throughout this journey is that experience taught me more about myself than anything I had come into contact with prior to that experience, mainly because on the second floor of the African American History Museum, there's the Family History Center. And that's where you can go there and they have experts there to help you trace your family history, essentially just give you some starting points, not a whole week or so. It's just sort of to help you get started.
And I was blown away. I had never did anything on my personal family history. And now I am still currently in the process of tracing all my family roots back. It's just been an amazing journey to be able to go back to my family, excuse me, and enlighten them on things that I've come across in the past. And I'll just give you just a little snippet. And I could actually turn this into a dissertation. And believe it or not, I actually did apply to Brown University. So if you ever have the chance to visit Brown University, Brown University was essentially started by the Nightingale family. These are the white Nightingales who, long story short, one of the Nightingales eventually moved to Cumberland Island, Georgia, Gullah-Geechee Sea Island in Georgia. And that's where my family's from. And essentially they owned my family, and that's how we got our last name.
And so I've been able to put that story together, but with the help of researchers and everything. But it's that passion and that willingness on my end to keep going, despite a lot of the challenges. For a lot of African Americans, that's some deep stuff to take in. But how I see it is if I don't do the work, I don't know who else will. Nobody in my family ever really told me about this side of it. And maybe these are stories that families hold in, these secrets that these families hold in. Well, I'm all about getting them out, and more importantly, getting them documented and recorded, some kind of documentation. Because in my profession, as a lot of people know, if you can't prove it, what is it at that point? If you can't prove it, what is it? So that's one of the things that kept me going. I have a whole bunch more stories, but that specific trip to D.C. in 2017, summer of 2017, it changed my life for the better, I would definitely say.
Carrie Fox:
Wow, Brandon, thank you for sharing that. And I can only imagine the power of that moment of learning your family history. When you shared that with your family, were they learning things for the first time?
Brandon Nightingale:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, my father, what I was able to do ... my father, who carries the Nightingale name ... So my family still lives in the area where my ancestors were enslaved, and they never moved. You can trace that area, it's St. Marys, Georgia, to the 1800s through Census records. You can trace all that stuff. And so I was able to take my father onto Cumberland Island, which is Sea Island, half of it is owned by the National Park Service now, so they administer some tours, and take him on the tour out there. And what we ended up finding out after more and more research after working with the National Park Service and the University of South Carolina on the project, that it was actually my grandfather who worked on the island in the '30s and '40s. And we actually were able to uncover his interview that the National Park Service did with him in 1990.
And so to hear his voice ... I was young when he passed away, very young. So I had never really heard his voice too much. But to hear his voice as we went through Cumberland Island ... He talked about working on the roads. We were going down the roads that he was talking about working on. And with technology and everything, I was able to get on my phone, listen to his voice as I walked up and down. And so it's those kind of things that happen. And again, it goes back to this idea of us being able to confront these horrible stories. Slavery was a horrible thing. There's no way around it. There's no other way you can cut it. But when you are able to go back to these places, and ... I wouldn't even call it reconciling, but there's an acknowledgement of where you come from, the people that walked that same land that are connected to you, it's much more than I can put into words. There was a spiritual connection. Just so many things that go through my head.
And this is research that continuously, continuously happened. So because of what I did with the research with the National Park Service and South Carolina, people contacted me all the time. Just a couple months ago, we had some scholars from the U.K. They wanted my knowledge and opinions on ... there was an enslaved woman that was on the island at one point. And she ends up leaving the island, going to the U.K., and she becomes a famous nurse out in the U.K. And so just for them to contact me and say, "Hey, we heard you were doing this history and this and that," and now I'm talking to folks in the United Kingdom, I mean ... And I didn't contact them. They contacted me because they heard all the stuff we're doing.
But that doesn't happen if I don't intern in 2017. And more importantly, since I moved back ... I moved back last year to D.C., or I moved permanently here to D.C. The resources that are available here are just unmatched. I mean, Library of Congress, I've been there a couple times now. You got the National Archives here, the African American Museum, so many places and resources, and just an abundance of knowledge that it's at my fingertips. So I'm making sure that I am taking every single opportunity to do stuff for the project, of course, but there's also my own personal connections and stuff. So it's been truly, truly amazing.
Carrie Fox:
Brandon, a few moments ago you were talking about your current job as a dream job. And I mentioned it to you at the top, there's so many historians who I imagine, very strongly suspect, that the job you have now is their dream job too. But as I listen to you, I'm realizing that there's dream job and then there's destiny. And it really feels like there have been certain moments and doors that have been opened to you to lead you right into this job, into this pathway.
Brandon Nightingale:
Yeah. Yeah, no. No, I think about it often. I tell my parents, that's something we've been talking about lately, is I didn't come out here by luck or by choice; by choice, of course. But it was no luck that I got out here. They helped me with the transition and move, and I still contact them and talk to them every week, as well as friends that I left when I moved to Florida. But it's obvious that I'm here for a purpose. I'm reminded of that every time I walk in Moorland and see my staff, because it was a tedious process to get all of them hired and get everybody in. But now that things are moving along and we're able to start getting off some scans, I'm so anxious to get through those scans and start searching for things that we want to search.
I love the story of Mary McLeod Bethune. Again, I was the archivist at Bethune-Cookman University prior to my time. And so as soon as we get some things up and running and some actual content that I can search and really research into, one of the first things I'm looking forward to is something on Mary McLeod Bethune, because that she was just all over the place. And I know she was a member of the Black press. And so that's one just small example.
Also on the genealogy side, again, tracing my family history, you can use newspapers. That's a genealogy tool right there. And there's so many others, you've got newspapers.com, so many other sources and places of knowledge. But to think that I'm over a repository that can possibly lead to somebody finding their family history, just that alone is destiny in itself, because I know firsthand how important that is.
And so again, it is not by luck I got here; definitely destiny. And it's something, again, I'm reminded when I go through the halls. And when the history of Moorland and it being on Howard's campus and the history of Howard, it hits home so much more. And this is the last thing I'll say, is because prior to this, I worked at an HBCU, but I did not attend one for school. And so even though I haven't started school yet, the atmosphere I'm in now at Howard is just amazing. I'm used to being usually the only Black guy in the class or one of the few Black people in the program. So now to come to Howard where I look up and the professors are Black, the students are Black, that goes a long way, especially when we talk about your mental ... and representation matters. That goes a long way. And that's ultimately why for me, I don't know about the other person that applied for the PhD program, for me specifically, I had to go to Howard. I had to go to Howard.
Carrie Fox:
Wow. So when you think about what's ahead of you ... I'll bring back up something you said before we started recording, which is you can't wait to start scanning, but first you got to get the foundation done. And that's really important because this is a groundbreaking project. This is a huge undertaking. And the standards that you're putting into place, I know you're really thinking about this, is what will this do to inspire other programs and other initiatives and other research efforts? So there's a lot that you need to get in place before you can get to that, digging into some of the stories. So tell me a little bit, what does that include for folks who are listening and trying to figure out what does it mean to be a historian? What does it mean to set up a groundbreaking research project like this; how you're thinking about the steps that have to happen in order for you to get to those incredible stories that are going to be revealed in your future.
Brandon Nightingale:
Yeah, yeah. That's something we're literally dealing with right now as we speak, as I'm away from the office now. That's what I have my staff do, is literally coming up with their work plans. So from the moment they walk into the door, I want to know how are they starting their day? Meaning if you're talking about just scanning a newspaper, that's the ultimate goal, scan all these materials, scan all these projects, well, okay, how are we picking what we're scanning? What's the process for us picking a publisher? Just that alone has created dialogue between my staff: "Well, let's start here. Well, let's start with the Caribbean papers. Well, let's start with the African papers. Well, let's start with the papers that are in the US, because we have a connection and an established relationship with folks in the NPA."
So all these discussions are had. And I think a lot of people just think, "Hey, let's just scan, scan, scan."Yes, we're going to get to a point where eventually it is scan, scan, scan. But for now, we have to determine what does the process look like as far as even, okay, once it's scanned, where are we saving it to, right? Because right now we have sort of three different storage systems in place. Do we need to add another just in case? These are the things that we are currently figuring out.
And then the last piece is dealing with such high level equipment. I mean, we've got some start-of-the-art materials as far as equipment. We just recently took a visit to the Library of Congress. And when we go to the Library of Congress, they mentioned some of the machines that they work with. And in my head I'm like, "Wow, these are the same machines that we have." So we have the best of the best, thanks to the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation for giving us that $2 million to go out and get the best of the best. And then it's once you get the best of the best, how do you operate it? Because we were able to get some training, but the main thing, and I was mentioning this to you before the call, was the grant was written under these guidelines.
They're called FADGI for short, F-A-D-G-I. Federal digitization guidelines essentially is what they are. And it basically provides a standard of how you should be digitizing your material. So the little things like the output, what should the DPI be, PPI, all the fancy lingo that goes into some of this stuff. What should that be to give you the best, highest quality image according to the standards that were put in place by people who are at the Library of Congress, so the highest and the highest? So we are now putting those initiatives into our workflow, because prior to this, and I'm completely honest here, we were just eyeballing. We were just, "Hey, that looks like a good scan, on to the next."
And that's not a bad thing, because our equipment is so up-to-date that what is a good scan for us is going to be likely a good scan across the board, no matter where you're looking at it. But we wanted this standard to say, when it's all said and done, when somebody asks, "Hey, how are you able to determine what kind of scan this is," and all this and that, well, we can point to the Library of Congress and these guidelines and say we were scanning at the level of these standards.
And just a little bit about the standards. They're in four tiers. And so the four star is the highest star, through FADGI. That's what we're aiming for. We may not always get it. So if we fall a little under, three star is what the Library of Congress uses, and a lot of other companies that we talk to. Everybody's cool with three star. But we want the best of the best, so we're going for four star. And then any kind of situation we may not reach four star, we'll hit that three star mark. But just off the principle of us having great equipment, we're already pretty much with our equipment at a two star just before we even do anything, because of the equipment that we were able to get.
And it's also to say there are ways to get to these guidelines without this fancy equipment. It just takes a longer time. But the Library of Congress was able to point us in a direction of free software to achieve these guidelines. So as institutions will come and talk to us, I can show them what we have, and, "Hey, we had all this money." But we also want to refer people to some free options, because I know that other institutions, especially HBCUs, probably don't have the funds that we have to go out and get all this. So we know what we have, but we're looking out for other schools, other institutions as they come to us and are wowed and amazed, we want to be able to say, "Well, hey, here's some free options to achieve these same standards."
Carrie Fox:
Brandon, if you think about the body of the Black press from the beginnings of the Black press, as you talked about when you first started, how much do you think is actually still there that you will find, versus how much of this body of work has forever been lost to history? Do you have any sense of that?
Brandon Nightingale:
Yeah, that's such a great question. And so I'll tell you sort of my story since we started. So when I took over, and this is again the truth, I was given an inventory list or a finding aid of the microfilm specifically. There was no finding aid for the physical newspapers. They were just stored in all these different boxes and just all over the place, but for the microfilm specifically ... So one of the first things I did was go and try to see what was the oldest bit of material that was on that finding aid, just the finding aid. And I think that finding aid was done in the '90s, or could have even been earlier. And I don't think there's been a complete inventory since then.
And so as I'm digging through, searching and searching, what I noticed is that we had some dates that were prior to 1867. We've seen something as far back as 1830s. And so it's just understanding and knowing ... And then this is the last thing I'll say. So even just last week, I had a meeting. And one of the students in the library division in Moorland came down and was like, "Hey, we just came across about 30 boxes with microfilm in them, and they're Black press. And they have not been inventoried at all." And so I say that to say, I have to expect the unexpected here, because Moorland is such a big place. Now that we're growing our staff, we're increasing our staff, there's going to be other instances where I guarantee folks come and say, "Hey, we found this over way where it was not supposed to be. And it is putting more pieces to the puzzle."
So the amount of stuff that we're going to be able to recover ... I mean, some of the requests that we're getting is amazing. And I want to say, "Oh my God, let me go check and see if we got this right now." Someone wanted some stuff from the Wilmington Journal, looking at a historic Black African American-owned hotel resort, things like the Sea Breeze or something. And I'm just like, "Oh, can we go search that now?" But I'm so serious about making sure that the plan is in place first, because if we don't have a proper plan in place first, we're going to end up coming back and revisiting and revisiting.
So I just know that there is so much there. And even though I know that some may be missing, there's been some cases where we're missing microfilm reels, don't know what happened ... And that's not really ... of course we want to try to find it, but there's going to be some disappointment also, too. But the good thing is we have the equipment to save whatever it is that we have our hands on. We can go back and put the pieces together and try to see, "Hey, who has these missing collections," and do all that stuff. But we just have to focus on what we have in our collection right now, not get too sidetracked with what everybody else has, and then what does that look like to the public? How are we going to get that out to the public? So it's very exciting. So much stuff we're uncovering, I know we're going to uncover. And then again, there's the unexpected of what's out there that I have no idea, I can't even imagine, that's sitting in our archive right now.
Carrie Fox:
But you just outlined it so perfectly, the project is too important not to be slow and careful in every step of the project. It's the perfect definition of patient urgency, that it would be great to run right into it. But having those important first steps in place will be critical to your success. Brandon, as we're wrapping up, I'm curious, if you look ahead, whether that's five years, 10 years, whatever the marker is that you want to look ahead, what do you hope the impact of this project is on our future understanding of our past?
Brandon Nightingale:
Yeah, that's a great question. When I think about the project specifically, the end goal, I think about the global perspective. I think I get so caught up in what's going on in the U.S., because most of our papers are in the U.S. But when you see and look at our inventory and you see the different countries and different locations that the newspapers were in, it just brings a whole different perspective for what you're doing and why you're doing it. And so my end goal for the project specifically is some sort of mapping element where we can get to the point where you can see a globe figure, be able to pinpoint any part on that globe, and you be able to see some bit of the Black Press Archives in that location, no matter where you are on that globe.
And so again, that's a tough task. We have to first find out what we have to see if we can hit every part. But that's how I'm looking at it. I can't get caught up ... And Dr. Taughton reminds me of that all the time with his African sort of background and his expertise in that field. He's always thinking of Africa and how we can make those connections. And so that's one thing that I'm trying to incorporate into what it is we're doing, not just thinking about the U.S. American Black press, but because we have these other outlets and these other papers, making sure not only do we tell those stories, but in the right context and the right knowledge.
And this is on the technical side too, because every paper that we run is going through optical character recognition to the point where you can just ... Everybody loves to hit Control F and search on documents. There's a software that you have to apply to make things searchable. So what happens when you have a different language? How does that work? And so when we met with the Library of Congress, we asked them, "What do you do when you come across foreign languages?" And you know what they told us? "Oh, it's a free platform you can use, and it'll do it right away." And so we were just amazed from that trip, and ultimately that's going to help us tell these stories.
And just a simple translation of these stories, that's a whole dialogue and discussion in itself, just deciphering different foreign newspapers. What does that process look like? And we haven't completely gotten there yet, but it's something we're going to end up tackling once we get a good understanding of the U.S. American-based papers. And this is the last thing I'll say, that's the beauty of my team, is I made sure I had such a diverse team, not just academic-wise, but also nationality-wise. We have a couple of African students, American students, Caribbean students, bringing everybody in together and having seen them come up with different conclusions or different relations because of their upbringing. That's, I think, the beauty of this project.
And I think if we have that at the core of this project as we are doing everything, then we're going to be successful no matter what, because we're always conscious of our audience. We are not just thinking in the U.S., and we're not just thinking present. My head is I'm five years already, what happens when this collection is complete? And when you talk about that, I'm thinking sustainability. How can we make sure that this website, these files, will be accessible by the public for the next 1,000 years? And that's so exciting when you think about it, right? When you really sit down and think about it, that is exciting to even think about how can you project the next 1,000 years or so? But that's the truth. People are going to want these files 1,000 or so years from now. Just thinking about that give me goosebumps.
Carrie Fox:
Brandon, it goes back to the incredible story of you uncovering your personal history. And the trickle-down effect of what this project will do for how many thousands, millions of people will be impacted by this work for years and years to come, right? It's a global story, as you said, with incredible global impact. And I'm so glad that you were able to preview some of it with us today, because I know it's still in its very early stages. Before we go, I really want you to tell folks where they can go to learn more and where they can support your work.
Brandon Nightingale:
Yes, yes. So it's @hu_blackpress on just about all platforms, Twitter, Instagram. I know we've been getting a lot of great feedback on our social media channels. Eventually we're going to have a request form out. So anybody that has any requests on specific parts of the collection that they would like to just learn more about, we're going to be able to answer requests. It just takes time to get everything together. But yes, @hu_blackpress. We just put up some posts. I believe today on our last post, we were able to welcome the founding director of Moorland. He came back as we're celebrating 50 years of Moorland and the Black press. And so I was actually out that day, but my staff got to talk to him. And he was a part of getting the collection to Howard. And so the Black Press Archives collection, he was a part of that negotiation and getting it to Howard.
So that's the kind of stuff that we're putting out. And we want to engage with our audience all the time. We're putting up stories about what's going on in the media currently and how people are reacting to that. So we have a great communications team. All the student staff is great. But yes, we are @hu_blackpress, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. We're even on Facebook. I think we're going to start getting some TikToks out there coming soon. And I want to show off everything that we have from our scanners. We're not turning anybody down that wants to come and visit and see what we're doing, because I can talk about it, but when you see it in action and you see those scanners in action, it is truly a sight to see. And then when you get to talk to the students, it's truly amazing.
Carrie Fox:
Incredible. Well, I would love to have you back on when your processes are in place and you've started to have some of that come in, and you can give us an update on how it's going. But Brandon, I am so grateful for you to be here with us to start this season. You and your team are both preserving history and you are making history, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the future of this work. Thank you so much for being with us.
Brandon Nightingale:
Yes, and thank you for having me, Carrie, and good luck as bring on more guests. Definitely, good luck.
Carrie Fox:
And that brings us to the end of this episode of Mission Forward. Thanks for tuning in today. If you are stewing on what we discussed here today, or if you heard something that's going to stick with you, drop me a line at carrie@mission.partners, and let me know what's got you thinking. And if you have thoughts for where we should go in future shows, I would love to hear that too.
Mission Forward is produced with the support of Sadie Lockhart in association with the True Story team. Engineering by Pete Wright. If your podcast app allows for ratings and reviews, I hope you'll consider doing just that for this show. But the best thing you can do to support Mission Forward is simply to share the show with a friend or colleague. Thanks for your support, and we'll see you next time.
