Archival theorists Zakiya Collier and Tonia Sutherland have described Black archival practice as a sequence that includes the testifying and witnessing of Black experiences and then the transforming of scholarship. That first stage of testimony drives the cycle of movements creating archives and archives creating movements. Just as anti-slavery activists assembled photographs and other ephemera to provoke public outrage and concern, a collective sentiment today can produce a viral hashtag, which further generates a shared sensibility. This panel asks how has record keeping served as a strategy for social or cultural change and how have artists and intellectuals used the promise of future histories to reshape their present activism.

Each paper explores archival testimonies as they record creators' ambitions during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For example, the New Negro’s youthful ethos inspired the 1927 and 1929 Wonder Book publications, as LaVerne Gray argues. Students from the Washington Intercollegiate Club of Chicago spearheaded the two books’ development. The students’ research not only documented their city, but also reinforced the zeitgeist that placed these students at the center of a cultural renaissance. During the same period, the 135^th Street library in Harlem testified to the revolutionary potential of the adult education movement. Melanie Chambliss examines how the Harlem “experiment,” as it was known, informed Arturo Schomburg’s work with the library. In 1932, Schomburg was hired as curator over the branch’s Negro Division with funding from an adult education grant. Schomburg was considered a key factor in this experiment’s success as the adult education movement aligned with Schomburg's vision for Black collections’ use. Documentation also became a strategic tool for anti-apartheid activists to ensure that their work and the harsh realities facing Black South Africans would never be forgotten. Martha Biondi explores two archives that combated propaganda and misinformation. Apartheid South Africa’s oppressive policies and misrepresentations shaped these activist archives and the communities that surrounded them. Skyla Hearn considers her role as an archivist bridging community movements in her paper on archives and collectives. Hearn has partnered with several Chicago-based collectives ranging from artists groups like the Floating Museum to her fellow archivists in the Blackivists organization. Each collective emphasizes the role of archiving in affirming Black culture and fostering community connections. Hearn’s work extends from generations of Black memory workers, and such movement-driven collections and collection-driven movements have been the norm for Black archival practice rather than the exception. This panel, with its wide temporal range, would appeal to anyone interested in the long history of Black collecting and the politics of archive creation.