n.a person who works with recorded information, particularly when accompanied by a focus on supporting justice and equity and protecting others from harmLambert 2002, 127So, too, the genealogists studied here function as memory workers, their writing and expertise on family matters establishing them as mnemonic others within their extended families.Powell et al. 2018, 8As Black women memory workers focused on equity, justice and access, we do not see ourselves as passive keepers of ‘dead’ historical records. We play an active role in shaping history and memory through our actions and choices (things we choose to document and things we overlook), and we remember that we are one of many stewards with a passion for African American history and culture.Evans 2019, 2Whether you work in special collections or a stand-alone facility, you can have an impact. Let’s continue to partner with other cultural institutions and private entities to introduce the public to their history—and to be even better memory workers.Grimstad 2019These individuals whom the Nazis expected to purge for all time for being ‘un-German’ now live on in public memory through these narratives of their lives, achievements, and persecution—meticulously and caringly compiled by the theme year memory workers—that can be seen by visitors throughout the world for the foreseeable future.Margolies 2019, 22Memory workers, inside and outside of archives, increasingly seek to confront the ongoing legacies of oppression and colonialism within the institutions in which they work—to question and reframe whose stories are best told and from what perspective users are encouraged to approach them.Winn 2020, 1For memory workers, the specter of biological annihilation is accompanied by a more immediate existential crisis: if there will be no one to remember what was, then what will have been the purpose of memory work?Collier et al. 2020, 29On June 6, I co-authored with other beloved Black memory workers Call to Action: Archiving State-Sanctioned Violence Against Black People, which asserts that Black memory workers should lead efforts to document this particular moment for the purposes of accountability and to ensure that the record of Black suffering is approached with care and attention to the ways that documentation can perpetuate further harm.Williams and Collier 2020ZC: Yes, archiving is in some ways creating or preserving more material that can be surveilled. The Blackivists, which is a group of black memory workers out of Chicago, put together a number of resources and have spoken about this throughout the summer and fall, about ways people who are photographing or using photographs from protests can protect organizers and participants so that material doesn’t come back to haunt them. We want to preserve a record of what’s happening but, speaking for myself, it’s much more important to protect black people. I want to protect black life more than I want to preserve a photograph.
