Celebrate San Diego: Black History And Heritage

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego history center kicks off an online exhibit and social media campaign today to celebrate black history month KPBS arts and culture reporter Beth Huck, Amando previews celebrate San Diego, black history and heritage with the history center's marketing manager, Shelby Gordon Speaker 2: 00:19 Shelby. Tell me how the center gathered some of these images that are part of this San Diego black history collection. Well, we've had them in our collection and our permanent collection and we're a 92 year old organization. So over the course of those 92 years errors have left us items and photographs. And then Mr. Bay Dennard, who was a black portrait and events photographer here for decades. Um, his son literally brought us negatives and prints from his collection, which is extensive. And in going through some of this material for the exhibition, did you come across anything that is your favorite? Well, I'm a black San Diego. And so a lot of these are snapshots of my life. Um, I was baptized in a pool like this. I know ladies who lunch in that photograph. I had uncles who were in the military and I was a debutante. Speaker 2: 01:24 So I have the debutante photo as well. So a lot of these reflect my memories of being born and raised here and also the culture and the society that I grew up in, in black San Diego, out of these items. Is there any, that has a particularly interesting history in terms of how you got it or what it represents? Well, I think the Bain art collection certainly is it's legendary to have that scope of photographs, individual portraits, family portraits, events, occasions, and to have that unsolicited being brought to the center and for it to be encompassed into our permanent collection, that's pretty memorable. And for this year, what is the center planning to do for black history month? Well, we had planned to open an exhibition, Nathan Harrison, born and slaved, and died a San Diego legend last year. But due to the virus, we had to postpone that event. Speaker 2: 02:34 And as we started thinking about how like every other, um, arts and culture institution here across the globe, how could we could switch this to a virtual display and make it accessible by people, even though our physical doors were not open. So that's where the celebrate San Diego black history and heritage exhibition really evolved. We've certainly had lots of photography. We had journal articles in our journal of San Diego history. We have oral histories, we continue to get documents and ephemera and momentos donated to us. So in putting it together, however, particularly the timeline, which will be a 24 foot wide timeline in the physical space, but we knew we needed to put that online. And when we did it, we're working with an African-American advisory council and they said, you know what? There are some glaring omissions here. And we said, then what a great idea then to go to the community so that they can insert their memories, their reflections, their milestones, their photographs, their art, to be inserted into our virtual timeline. Speaker 2: 04:00 And then that sprung board into will nominate a local hero because so many of us have been influenced by a teacher or a leader or a role model or a mentor who helped us. And in some cases they're acknowledged and in some cases they're not. So we wanted to offer that opportunity to the community, to nominate heroes, not necessarily the ones, um, the black leaders that we see in the news every day, but heroes who are really helped instill values and goals in San Diego, kids of all ages who have then turned around and mentor other generations and who continue to help this community really thrive in stride. Speaker 3: 04:52 This is going to be available online, but are you also doing, uh, something on social media as well to share some of this information Speaker 2: 05:00 Today, February 1st will be our 28 days of black San Diego history, social media promotion. Every single day, we will be posting is usually an element from our virtual timeline. But I also think that we're going to get some really good submissions from the community. And I do want to be able to insert those in as well. So that will be deployed on all our social media platforms. It's very, I don't want to say novel, but it's very aggressive. And I think a lot of people don't necessarily think when they think black history month, they may not think about San Diego black history. And I was asked the question, Shelby, do you really have 28 days? Yes, I really have 28 days plus. Speaker 3: 05:48 So if people have things that they would like to contribute, what's the best way to donate them or to provide them to the center. Speaker 2: 05:55 So you can go to our website, go to the research tab. There's a donated artifact. There you click on that. You complete the form. It comes to the center, our collections team evaluates it. And then they may call you back and ask you some questions and then possibly make arrangements to take possession of it and tell us where we are right now. What is this room here? We are in the research archives. We are in beautiful Balbo park. We are below the floor below the exhibition space, and this is sacred ground. There are statues and busts and newspapers and microfiche and negatives and prints. And Natalie's back there printing because we do get quite a few orders from people wanting historic photos, architects, and commercial, interior designers, wanting historic photos to enhance their new spaces. So we're exceptionally busy doing that, even though our physical doors are closed, we continue to facilitate all of those requests. So dynamic space down here, it's one of my favorite places to be in the center. Um, because as a native born I'm down here too, right. In some way. So, um, yes, where were hopeful that at some point we'll be able to safely, um, open our exhibition space to the public and the meantime, quite a few of our photographs and our research guides and our research tips and tools are on our website. All right. Well, I want to thank you very much. Thank you. Speaker 1: 07:49 That was Beth Armando speaking with the San Diego history centers, Shelby Gordon, the virtual timeline gathering. All these materials can be found on the San Diego history center website@sandiegohistory.org.