Keywords for Black Louisiana (K4BL) Launches Public Beta of Black History Documents (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE)

Come celebrate Black history, kinship, and resistance in Louisiana and beyond!

Keywords for Black Louisiana (K4BL) is thrilled to announce the launch of a digital collection of enslaved testimony from French- and Spanish-controlled Louisiana.

Keywords for Black Louisiana (K4BL, keywordsforblacklouisiana.org) is a collective of researchers creating digital projects highlighting the Black life and culture of the Gulf Coast. With the support of funding from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission, K4BL is building a community-engaged digital edition of annotated, transcribed and translated manuscript documents from 18th century (French and Spanish) Louisiana.

The stories in these documents describe the lives and resistance of enslaved and free people of African descent against bondage, colonialism, and the everyday terror of slavery. Access to the stories of Black life in these documents has been limited to those trained in paleography or with French and/or Spanish translation skills. Providing access to the stories in these documents through English language translations and digital access does more than offer researchers, teachers, public historians, and artists opportunities to learn from the centuries-long Black freedom struggle Gulf Coast communities have been engaged in. It also creates a tremendous resource for African descended communities in Louisiana whose ancestors fueled some of the most important moments in American history.

The project began with the goal of creating one digital edition of transcribed and translated documents (French and Spanish), drawn from the Louisiana Colonial Documents Digitization Project hosted by the New Orleans Jazz Museum (a K4BL institutional partner). Over the years of the project and as a result of conversation with Black public historians, community partners who form the K4BL Community Circle and Advisory Board, the team made a collective decision to create a K4BL Document Site (that focused on transcriptions/translation) and a K4BL Story Site (that focused on narrativizing the lives and stories of the enslaved and free Black people and communities found in and across multiple documents). K4BL institutional partners include the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Louisiana State Museum, JHU Sheridan Libraries, and the Amistad Research Center.

K4BL celebrated the launch in New Orleans at WYES-PBS Studios with public presentation from Malik Bartholomew, President of the Charles Deslondes Branch of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and Culture (ASALH), Big Queen Dianne Honoré (Unheard Voices of Louisiana Project), Project Director and Founding Editor Dr. Jessica Marie Johnson (Johns Hopkins University), as well as E. G. Palazzolo (2023-2024 K4BL Digital Curation Fellow, JHU), Chenise Calhoun (2022-2024 LxC Community Engagement Fellow, Tulane), and Jamya Davis (Digital Designer, XULA), key architects of the digital infrastructure that holds the documents. The launch also featured special guest presentations and performances from musical group Les Cenelles. Les Cenelles is a contemporary string ensemble exploring the Creole diaspora through melody and memory to honor our cultural ancestors and preserve the plurality of their experiences through a prismatic and contemporary lens. The launch was co-sponsored by Black Louisiana History Incubators, a Diaspora Solidarities Lab microlab.

“We started this project in 2020, in the pandemic, with a handful of dedicated researchers. To see that labor and love bear fruit is an amazing thing,” Dr. Jessica Marie Johnson said about the project and the launch. “Public beta essentially means we are still building the document base and testing out features, but there is important material available here, all built on minimal computing principles—which means it loads on any device, even your cell phone, and pretty much anywhere around the world. And we built it practically from paper and pen. If we can, ANYONE can.”

The research team that created the digital edition was led by Johnson, Dr. Guadalupe Garcia (University of California, San Diego) as Managing Editor, and Leila Blackbird (University of Chicago) as Senior Research Editor. Editors on the project include Associate French Editors Olivia Barnard (JHU) and Chenise Calhoun; Associate Spanish Editors Kaillee Coleman (Tulane), Christina Villarreal (University of Texas, El Paso); and Assistant Spanish Editor Akosa Obianqu (JHU). Sheridan Libraries librarians and engineers played instrumental roles on the project, especially Margaret Burri, Emily McGinn, and John Abrahams. Alex Gil (Technical Consultant) and Jon Baynes (Eindevr) offered critical support as the LxC Research Software Engineer. Key personnel who passed through the project in its production phase include Dr. Emma Bilski (JHU), Eola Dance (Howard University), and Maya Hogarth (Smithsonian).

Keywords for Black Louisiana would like to thank the following supporters and sponsors: National Historic Publications & Records Commission; The New Orleans Jazz Museum; Louisiana State Museum; Amistad Research Center; Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries & University Museums; Historic New Orleans Collection; the Midlo Center at the University of New Orleans; Xavier University of Louisiana; Ray Charles Program in African American Culture at Dillard University; Tulane University; LifexCode: Digital Humanities Against Enclosure; Black Louisiana History Incubators (a Diaspora Solidarities Lab Microlab); and the Mellon Foundation.

A special thank you to the Keywords Community Circle and Advisory Board: Alex Lee, Angela Proctor, Bruce Sunpie Barnes, Denise Frazier, Dianne Honoré, Freddi Evans, Gia Hamilton, Ibrahima Seck, Kathe Hambrick, Kristina Kay Robinson, Leon Waters, Malik Bartolomew, Mona Lisa Saloy, Monique Moss, Pat Schexnayder, Phebe Hayes, Shana Griffin, Sharlene Sinegal-DeCuir, Shearon Roberts. The K4BL Community, Ethics, and Engagement Team includes Dr. Laura Rosanne Adderley (Tulane), Dr. Wendy Gaudin (XULA), Dr. Shearon Roberts (XULA), Dr. Eva Baham (Dillard), Nyla Williams (XULA), and Cyntoya McCall (Tulane).

For more information about the project follow our socials @life_x_code on IG and Twitter.

Direct questions or press inquires about the project to: admin@keywordsforblacklouisiana.org or Jessica Marie Johnson (jmj at jhu dot edu)

Keywords for Black Louisiana is a LifexCode: Digital Humanities Against Enclosure project. For more about LifexCode see lifexcode.org.