This semester, the Davidson History Journal is launching the collection: “Unlocking Chambers: Exploring the History of Race and Racism at Davidson College.” This project seeks to spotlight coursework, projects, and initiatives that relate to Davidson College’s history with race and enslavement. This collection began as part of a conversation with what has now become the Society of Undergraduate Humanities Publications, a coalition of history journals from undergraduate institutions around the world. In June 2020, one of the society’s founding partners, Yale University, began the 1701 Project, a digital repository that houses work related to its institutional history regarding race and enslavement.
Davidson has many completed and ongoing projects related to reckoning with our institution’s difficult history. One such initiative is Stories (Yet) To Be Told, which funds “projects of race, racism, and accountability at Davidson College.” We are pleased to publish an opinion piece written by Yashita Kandhari and Ashley Ip, who are working with this initiative on an oral history project entitled, “A History of Asians and Asian Studies at Davidson.”[1] Another campus project, Inclusive Histories of Davidson College, consists of a campus tour and a series of essays aimed at showcasing “a collection of hidden histories, of stories that are not typically understood as integral to the history of Davidson College despite their incredible importance.”[2] We have published a piece written by Professor Rose Stremlau on her work with this archive.
The other works included in this inaugural launch are student research projects spanning the topics of music, campus buildings, and student activism. These pieces center on interrogating and understanding Davidson’s history related to race and racism.
We hope for this publication, unlike our past issues, to be a growing collection of research, artwork, interviews, opinion pieces, and all other types of projects related to Davidson’s history with race and enslavement that members of our community can contribute to on an ongoing basis. — Laura Collins, Editor-in-Chief, Spring 2021
Please direct all questions and comments about this project to davidsonhistoryjournal@gmail.com.
[1] @s.y.t.b.t, Stories (Yet) To Be Told’s Instagram account.