Due to the nature of institutional and structural racism throughout American society, African American histories are largely marginalized within archival systems and sources. Thus, many scholars of Black history at times engage in alternative methods of archival research such as “reading against the grain” or “critical fabulation.” (Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts.”) In addition, scholars wishing to study African American biographies are often faced with the problem of applying more creative search methods and diving deeper into available sources, often corroborating unlikely and non-traditional sources with traditional ones, to piece together a genealogical, biographical, and social history of one individual. The panelists will provide insight into their process for accomplishing this unique format of African American spatial biography by describing their research methods—including strategies for navigating institutional silences in archives, locating a diverse collection of evidence, and analyzing “unconventional” sources. (Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives.)

Digital methods can help scholars to both overcome silences in traditional archives and to visualize what someone’s life in the past looked like at a certain time and place. Utilizing GIS and other spatial methods, such as deep mapping, is one mode of making meaning out of scarce archival records to re-imagine Black experiences of the past. When bound by a linear and textual form of analysis, it is harder to capture the complicated reality of lived experiences occurring at one time in one space. Maps and digitally-created network visualizations, on the other hand, can detect spatial patterns that might be hidden in lines of text or tables of data and can help capture complexity in a way that narrative cannot. Additionally, digital mapping can help scholars present dynamic visual biographies online, increasing public access to these stories and creating a richer understanding of African American pasts. By employing digital and spatial methods, the panelists demonstrate how to create unique historical narratives about individual African Americans centered in a particular geographic space.