Category Archives: Franklin Research Center

Archive of Documentary Arts, Bingham Center, Featured, Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library

Healing and Truth-Telling: Aishah Shahidah Simmons papers

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Post contributed by Ren Bickel, Technical Services Archivist for the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture

The Rubenstein Library is pleased to announce that the Aishah Shahidah Simmons papers are now open for research. Simmons is a Black feminist lesbian Buddhist practitioner, dharma teacher, and award-winning writer-filmmaker. Through three decades of cultural work, Simmons has created films which address Black lesbian identity, and sexual violence in Black communities, including her feature-length, award-winning NO! The Rape Documentary (2006). National Book and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, says of NO!, “If the Black community in the Americas and in the world would heal itself, it must complete the work this film begins.”

Simmons’s Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology, love WITH accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse, brings together diasporic Black child sexual abuse survivors and advocates who, through first-person transformative storytelling, explore child sexual abuse within Black families and communities. Feminist activist and author Gloria Steinem says of love WITH accountability: “With this brave and healing anthology of truth-telling about sexual abuse within Black families, Aishah Shahidah Simmons sets an example for all families.”

orange flyer advertising "A Benefit for No! REEL Sisters Combating Violence Against Black Women"The daughter of Civil Rights activists and scholars Michael Simmons and Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, and the sister of Grammy Award-winning DJ and record executive Tyree Cinque Simmons (DJ Drama), Simmons grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is married to Black lesbian trailblazer Sheila Alexander-Reid, founder of Women in the Life. Simmons founded the multi-media company AfroLez ® Productions in 1992 while participating in a scriptwriting workshop at Scribe Video Center taught by her mentor, the late award-winning author and filmmaker Toni Cade Bambara. During the workshop, she wrote Silence…Broken, which she developed into a short film in 1993. The company later produced In My Father’s House (1996), among other films. NO! The Rape Documentary was funded by individual donors, community-based funders, and granting agencies such as the Ford Foundation, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, and the Valentine Foundation. The film had its world premiere at the 2006 Pan African Film & Arts Festival in Los Angeles, CA. Simmons’s films have been included in film festivals around the world and have been screened by many educational and activist organizations.

Simmons’s writings have been published in media such as USA Today, The Root, Ms. Magazine, The Feminist Wire, The New York Times, Lion’s Roar, Black Perspectives, and Left of Black, as well as in newspapers in Philadelphia and Chicago, among other cities. She has held artist-in-residence and guest faculty appointments at universities such as Williams College, Temple University, Scripps College, Spelman College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Chicago. Since 1995, she has led over 400 workshops and dialogues in the U.S., Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. She is an Insight Meditation (vipassanā) teacher, including as Resident Teacher at Delaware Valley Insight.

The Aishah Shahidah Simmons papers were acquired as part of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, and the Archive of Documentary Arts. The collection is comprised of 39 linear feet of materials that document Simmons’s professional career, filmmaking endeavors, and personal life. Researchers will be able to explore Simmons’s writings, correspondence, working files, and an extensive collection of audiovisual materials documenting her life and work. The materials will provide insight into independent filmmaking in the 1990s and 2000s through an intersectional Black feminist lesbian lens and preserve the personal stories of many Black women survivors of sexual violence who courageously chose to speak their truth.

Technical Services Archivist Ren Bickel prepared the collection for research use. Reflecting on Simmons’ papers, she notes, “This collection documents Simmons’s deep commitment to a Black feminist approach to survivor-centered cultural work, especially in her years-long quest to make NO! The Rape Documentary. Researchers will find an array of information about the practical aspects of creating independent documentary films, from securing funding and managing logistics, to writing, filming, and editing. The stories Simmons gathered of Black women survivors’ experiences are powerful and affecting. I’m so excited to see what researchers will discover and how they’ll incorporate the materials into their own writings and projects.”

We are excited to make this singular collection available to students, scholars, and other researchers.

“Placing my papers at Duke marks an important moment in my life and work. As a Black feminist lesbian survivor-healer whose cultural works, writings, and images are survivor-centered and rooted in non-carceral accountability, reaching communities globally, I am grateful that this work will be held with intention across the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, and the Archive of Documentary Arts, accessible to generations who can learn from this work as ground to stand on and build beyond what I could imagine.” – Aishah Shahidah Simmons

 

Header image: Portrait of Aishah Shahidah Simmons by Studio TSHAY

Featured, Franklin Research Center, Movement History Initiative

The Music That Frees Us: Jonathan Lykes and BYP100 a Special Feature from the Movement History Initiative

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Post contributed by Mattison Bond, Movement History Initiative Coordinator as part of the Movement History Initiative Movement Makers Series

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The Music That Frees Us: Jonathan Lykes and BYP100 

As we celebrate summer, Pride, and Juneteenth, we are also reminded of the profound role that Black music has played in shaping this country’s culture and its movements. For the Movement History Initiative, that connection between music and organizing, past and present, is never far from mind. In this issue of Movement Makers, we turn our attention to Jonathan Lykes, co-founder and the current Director of Culture & Organizing with Black Youth Project (BYP100), whose approach to cultural organizing has always kept music at its center, as a strategy, practice, and passion worth sharing! 

Did you miss our last Movement Makers issue? No Problem! You can find it here!

photo of Black man with head in hand wearing yellow jacket
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Lykes

Jonathan’s Early Organizing Years:

 Before Jonathan Lykes (he/they/she) became the co-founder of The Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) he was a statewide organizer for the Ohio Youth Voices for Justice. He was fifteen when he started working with the organization and in 2006 would lead the organization’s first ballot initiative campaign that lobbied to raise the minimum wage in Ohio and then successfully get the bill passed.

“That’s the first time I felt powerful. First time I realized that we could bring people, working class people together.”

Photo of two African American protestors one holding a bullhorn, the other holding a flag
Photo courtesy of Jontahan Lykes

He would carry this experience and momentum as a young organizer to the University of Chicago where he would meet and study under Dr. Cathy Cohen and Dr. Charles Payne, deepening his understanding of the movement in a theoretical and cultural way.

The Founding of BYP100

 Jonathan stated that Trayvon Martin is viewed as the Emmett Till by his generation of organizers. The death of the teenager, and the unjust acquittal of his killer ,were the catalysts that led to the  bringing together of many Black youth across the nation to rally and organize against police brutality and an unfair legal system. In 2013, under the leadership and vision of his professor, Dr. Cathy Cohen, 100 Black youth leaders from across the country would  gather at the Beyond November Movement Convening in Chicago. From this convening BYP100 would come into being, with Jonathan being one of its founders.

Unique to the organization was the need and push to function under a Black Queer Feminist lens. The core founders of BYP100  noticed that, oftentimes, leaders of  the movement were Black, cisgendered, and heterosexual , but what they wanted to accomplish would require a different approach. In order to reach “true liberation for all” the organization would need for those who were most vulnerable (queer, trans, femme, poor, disabled, and undocumented Black people) to be at the center of their organizing work.

“It was not an easy task to get everyone on the same page about this, but centering those silenced and vulnerable groups within Black communities recognizes and humanizes our people who have historically been left out. This was one of the central and strongest threads that kept the organization together.”

Black woman sitting on top of a stage black, green, and red flag in the background
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Lykes

The Intergenerational Spirit of Cultural Organizing

 Also, deeply ingrained within BYP100 is the method of cultural organizing, the ability to use art and culture to shift policy, practices, and the minds and hearts of people . The 100 youth that met in Chicago that fateful day, while from different walks of life, were well versed in the importance of sewing culture into their organizing practice. During the founding meeting, youth like those of the Freedom School tradition at the CDF’s Freedom School, Highlander Center and those from Camp Akili in Oakland, would begin chanting and singing into the space, setting a framework for the organization to function for years to come.  This aspect of organizing had been central to Jonathan even in his early years. During the reading of petitions to an Ohio senator, in order to get the minimum wage ballot passed, he would perform poetry, because of his experience as a spoken word artist in high school.

Crowd of Black people in hooded sweatshirts yelling in protest
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Lykes

That framework set at the founding convening would eventually crystallize into two values that still guide BYP100’s work today. The first, a holistic energy, which is the practice of bringing one’s whole self into organizing by using things like call and response, art, singing, and dance to carry the movement’s message as it works to shift policy and practice. The second is a polyrhythmic praxis, which originally belongs to music theory, but has been adapted by Jonathan to fit into his organizing work.

“Polyrhythmic praxis is how we get a whole bunch of people doing different things, moving in their individual energies to come together, not in complete unison, but in differentiated coordination…We have to be nimble, fluid, and our talents must show up everywhere…with our full selves in all the places we’re building. So polyrhythms, or polyrhythmic praxis, allows us to demonstrate metaphorically, through the power of our own voice, what is taking place in this larger movement.”

The strategic use of art and culture in organizing is one that has been passed down by organizers from different generations, and that was the case for Jonathan and BYP100. SNCC (also known as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) was known for their use of music during the movement. Not only were there singers who used their voice in order to call meetings to order and calm organizers during desperate times, they also created a group called the Freedom Singers who would travel throughout the country, rallying people to the cause of liberation in the South. These young singers – themselves Movement organizers grounded in struggle – would create albums and focus on specific freedom songs at different times and places within the movement.  They were very aware of the strength and unity their singing brought to Movement gatherings.

Four young people joined hand in hand singing in protest
SNCC Freedom Singers, Charles Neblett, Bernice. Reagon, Cordell Reagon, and Rutha Harris, photo by Joe Alper, found at crmvet.org

For Jonathan personally, the SNCC Freedom Singers, alongside Sweet Honey in the Rock and the Highlander Center for Research and Education – where for 5 years he co-facilitated the cultural organizing train-the-trainers program, – represent the musical and spiritual roots of what BYP100 has always tried to do: make the movement something you can feel in your body, not just understand in your mind.

SNCC and its legacy have been woven into the very fiber of BYP100’s movement work since the very beginning, both figuratively and literally, as Jonathan and a few of its members have had relationships with some SNCC veterans. SNCC Legacy Project chair, Courtland Cox, was present at the creation of the founding documents of the organization;  Charlie Cobb and Judy Richardson joined local BY0100 chapter members to provide advice and mentorship.

“We were fortunate to be inspired, mentored, and supported, not just by the historic direct actions [but also] the music actions that took place within SNCC’s history…what I love about SNCC and the SNCC Legacy Project is  they have such a rich history, but they’re still fighting with us in the present moment.”

The Black Joy Experience Album

Album cover for the Black Joy Experience
The Black Joy Experience Album, Volume Two

The clearest expression of BYP100 and Jonathan’s cultural organizing work is The Black Joy Experience, a two-volume album that captures the chants, songs, and political messages that have defined the organization at key moments in its history. The recording of Volume 1 began in 2016 and was released in 2018, with members flying in from chapters across the country to record at Howard University’s radio station in Washington, D.C., on donated studio time and without dedicated funding. Released alongside the album was a resource guide containing BYP100’s history, a 20-activity holistic energy curriculum, case studies on freedom music, and testimonies from members on why freedom songs are critical to Black liberation.

“This wasn’t just music for entertainment, it was music to change the material conditions of Black people’s lives. We wanted to ensure we were adding political education, even though you could just listen to the album without any additional context, once you listen you will leave more informed and connected to our ancestors just by entering into our organization’s musical and cultural experience…”

In the time that the album was released, the choir would tour to their chapter cities. In 2019, BYP100 took the project to West Africa, touring Sierra Leone, Togo, and Ghana during the Year of Return, sharing their music and message with Black diaspora communities across the continent. Spotify also spotlighted the album and displayed Jonathan’s music in Times Square New York during Pride Month in 2022.

Present Day and Still Singing

When asked if Jonathan had a favorite freedom song, or one that keeps them going, he smiled and answered honestly: “That’s a hard question. There’s so many.”  

Just like SNCC and the Freedom Singers realized, freedom music is not meant to apply to the whole movement, but instead to specific moments and places. So for Jonathan, his favorite song changes from “week to week or year to year”. He chose to shout out Bernice Johnson Reagon’s “There’s a New World Coming.” because of its direct connection to the theme of Afrofuturism and the building of a Black radical space that BYP100 is currently focusing on.

Group of people in a bar location with instruments
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Lykes

 “I Love Being Black” from The Black Joy Experience and another of Jonathan’s personal favorites, serves as BYP100’s unofficial anthem with music by Jonathan and lyrics written by Je Naè Taylor this song speaks directly to how Jonathan understands freedom music. He believes it lives within communities, not on the charts. For Jonathan, commercialized music has not only been anti-Black, but a tool of capitalism and of the enemy. He doesn’t rely on it for that kind of spiritual enrichment. Freedom music, by contrast, is built to grow community, communicate values, and preserve history. It’s difficult to find, and when it surfaces, it’s often suppressed. For Jonathan, that’s not a reason for despair, it’s a reminder of why direct, people-centered organizing still matters most.

For those looking to find more freedom music, Jonathan’s answer is both practical and urgent. Base-building organizations must center it in their work as a rigorous cultural practice embedded in everything they do. In BYP100, that means opening and closing every meeting with song and chant, carrying the tradition forward the way SNCC once did. And for those who stumble across freedom music on their own — say, finding The Black Joy Experience on a playlist, Jonathan encourages them to follow that thread, to seek out what they haven’t yet heard, and, if they feel the call, to create their own.

BYP100 is celebrating its 13th birthday on July 13th, which is no small feat for an organization that continues to face systemic opposition designed to silence movements like theirs. Through it all, Jonathan remains rooted:

“I’m excited for the next 15 years of building Black political power and sharing radical freedom music with the masses.”

Large group photograph of African American young people
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Lykes

 

***

Hello Reader,

We want to take a moment to say thank you!

 At the Movement History Initiative, we understand, as SNCC knew well,  how essential communication and community are to the movement. As our community, we are grateful for your  continued support, and for helping us keep this history alive.

We are taking a summer break, but will return in August with more movement history, archival finds, and upcoming events. In the meantime, stay connected with us through our socials and explore our partners on the website. Also, keep an eye out for updates on events and fellowship opportunities.

Also, if you’ve enjoyed the newsletter,you should tell a friend! Forward this email along, or use the link at the button below to continue spreading the knowledge of the movement!

We’ll see you in the fall!

Forward Together,

Mattison Bond, Movement History Initiative Coordinator.

Bingham Center, Featured, Franklin Research Center, Hartman Center, History of Medicine, Human Rights Archive, Travel Grants

Announcing our 2026-2027 Travel Grant Recipients

The Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2026-2027 travel grants. Our research centers annually award travel grants to students, scholars, and independent researchers through a competitive application process. We extend a warm congratulations to this year’s awardees. We look forward to meeting and working with you!

Doris Duke Archives

Stephanie Opperman, Faculty, Georgia College and State University, “Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith and the Legacy of Jazz Clubs in 1940s Mexico City”

Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Collections

Elon Clark History of Medicine Travel Grants
Sarah Ahmed, Graduate Student, McGill University, “Madness and Methodism: Weslyan Sick Societies and the Treatment of Madness in the British Atlantic World, 1741-1818”

Lea Eisenstein, Graduate Student, Princeton University, “Coming Out: The Private and Public History of Hysterectomy in America”

Olivia Maddox, Graduate Student, University of California, San Diego, “Maternal Revolutions: A Cultural History of Motherhood in Modern China”

John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture

Jennifer Blaylock, Faculty, Rowan University, “Ghanavision: Ayi Kwei Armaha’s Work in Television in the 1960s”

Peyton White, Graduate Student, University of Texas, “Rastafari, Sovereignty, and Black Religious Nationalism in 20th Century Jamaica”

Halima Haruna, Graduate Student, Northeastern University, “An Intellectual History of African American Women’s Disability Politics, 1900s–1920”

Christina Thomas, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of South Carolina, “Digitizing Freedom Summer: An Interactive Map”

Corbin Covington, Graduate Student, Northwestern University, “Black Historiography and Psychoanalytic Theory”

Mickell Carter, Graduate Student, Brown University, “Black Men’s Style During the Black Power Movement”

Sydney Smith, Graduate Student, Rutgers University, “Reading for the Revolution: Black Bookstores and the Radical Tradition of Self-Education”

Harry H. Harkins, Jr. T’73 Travel Grants

Cassandra Gillig, Graduate Student, Northwestern University, “Learning Lesbian Sex”

Connall MacLennan, Graduate Student, University College London, “The Church and the Formation of Queer Identity, Community, and Politics in the State of Georgia, 1945-2015”

Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History

John Furr Fellowship for JWT Research
Henry Jacob, Graduate Student, Yale University, “Tourism in Flight: JWT, Pan-Am, and the Making of U.S. Power in the Americas”

Mario Uolla, Graduate Student, Northwestern University, “JWT’s T-Plan and the Origins of Consumer Centricity”

Alvin A. Achenbaum Travel Grants
Jennifer Scanlon, Faculty, Bowdoin College, “We Try Harder: Paula Green, Inc.”

Francesca Polletta, Faculty, University of California, Irvine, “Advertising to the New Woman, 1970-1975”

Ijeoma Kola, Faculty, University of Notre Dame, “Kitchen Chemists: Black Women, Medical Neglect, and the Science of the Natural Hair Movement”

Jonathan Marrow, Graduate Student, Cambridge University, “The Development of American Holocaust Tourism, 1945-2000”

Stephen Sonnenfeld, independent Researcher, “The Meaning Makers: A History of the American Advertising Agency”

Human Rights Archive

Jessica Day-Lucore, Graduate Student, Indiana University Bloomington, “The Human Rights Violators Club: The Uruguayan Dictatorship, the United States, and the Regulatory Regimes of the Late Cold War, 1973-1985”

Vivian Hernandez, Graduate Student, University of California Los Angeles, “’Nos interasa a todas’: Voluntary Motherhood and the Reproductive Rights Movement in Late Twentieth-Century to Early Twenty-First Century Mexico”

Ian Glazmer-Schillinger, Graduate Student, Syracuse University, “Web of Hate: White Power Goes Online, 1983-1999”

Eva Baylin, Graduate Student, Vanderbilt University, “Gender and the Radical Right: A Cultural History from the Margins to the Center of American Politics, 1965–2014”

Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture

Mary Lily Research Travel Grants
Amaluana Brock, Graduate Student, Auburn University, “1990s Young Women Zines as Feminist Identity Building”

Hsiao-Yun Chu, Faculty, San Francisco State University, “Exquisite Boredom: Ladies Fancy Workbooks and the Birth of Leisure Crafts, 1850–1910″

Maddy Coy, Faculty, University of Florida, “Feminist Knowledge, Violence Against Women, and Public Policy”

Hannah Dudley-Shotwell, Faculty, Longwood University, and Justina Licata, Faculty, Indiana University East, “A History of Abortion Funds in the U.S., 1960s–Present”

Halina Haruma, Graduate Student, Northeastern University, “An Intellectual History of African American Women’s Disability Politics, 1900s–1920″

Ijeoma Kola, Faculty, University of Notre Dame, “Kitchen Chemists: Black Women, Medical Neglect, and the Science of the Natural Hair Movement”

Felicity Palma, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brown University, “Eurydice in the Underworld”

Hope Tucker, Faculty, University of Iowa, “Feminist Bookstores in the South: A Film”

Lisa Walters, Faculty, University of Queensland, “Forgotten Histories: Renaissance Women and the Science of Atomism”

Jessie Wilkerson, Faculty, University of Tennessee – Knoxville, “In Sisterhood, In Struggle: A History of Feminist Possibilites in the American South”

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Research Travel Grants
Rachel Haines, Graduate Student, University of Virginia, “Close Reading as Queer Reading: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s ‘kind of formalism’”

Jennifer Hamilton, Faculty, University of New England, Australia, “Exploring the Relationship Between Queer Theory, Buddhism, and Textile Art in Sedgwick’s Body of Work”

Samuel Rutherford, Faculty, University of Glasgow, “Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick, Transmasculinity and the History of Queer Ideas”

Suzanne Scanlon, Faculty, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, “In Time, a novel”

 

Featured, Franklin Research Center, Movement History Initiative, News and Features

Maisha Moses and the Young People’s Project – Special Feature from the Movement History Initiative

Post contributed by Mattison Bond, Movement History Initiative Coordinator

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This Women’s History Month, the Movement History Initiative (MHI) is proud to highlight Maisha Moses as the Executive Director of the Young People’s Project (YPP). YPP is one of the organizations that have partnered with MHI’s goal to carry forward the spirit of the organizing tradition. Using math literacy the Young People’s Project, works “to develop the abilities of elementary through high school students to succeed in school and in life, and in doing so involves them in efforts to eliminate institutional obstacles to their success” (Misson, The Young People’s Project)

Woman in red jacket sitting in chair
Maisha Moses

Early Life and Influences:

Maisha’s early childhood was heavily influenced by her parents, veterans of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Bob and Janet Jemmott Moses. She was born in Tanzania, where her parents were teaching at a rural school in Samé. She was educated at a very early age and could read before she started school. “Teaching and education was really deep in their spirits and how they moved through the world, and so I really benefited from that.”

Three people, man in blue jacket, woman in black coat, woman in pink coat with blue scarf
(l to r) Bob Moses, Maisha Moses, Janet Moses. “Civic Leadership Spotlight: Cambridge family brings civil rights and math to kids” Cambridge Community Foundation, Dec. 19, 2018

Maisha benefited greatly from their experience as organizers during the Civil Rights Movement. Even after their time with SNCC , her parents remained connected with other organizers, many of whom  often visited the family once they moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1976. Maisha recalls learning freedom songs and being deeply moved by the energy that was brought into the house by her “extended family.” She would meet influential powerhouses like Ella Baker and see the respect from others that they had for her father, especially when she heard him speak publicly for the first time at Amzie Moore’s funeral.

Maisiah’s Future and the Algebra Project:

While in the 8th grade, Maisha’s father began teaching her and some of her peer’s algebra because it was not offered at the school. This would be the start of the Algebra Project, an organization, whose goal was to use math literacy as an organizing tool to guarantee that every child has a quality education and understanding of complex mathematics that was needed in the coming age of technology.

Maisha says that her father’s approach to mathematics was “powerful and deep enough that they helped me make my own sense of calculus and so I think I was hooked by all of that.”

Attending Harvard University allowed her to continue to volunteer with the growing Algebra Project. She started by helping with the Saturday program facilitated by  her father  and later  began working with her sister and her peers that were in the 8th grade.

Man in red shirt posing next to woman in pink shirt
Bob Moses and Maisha Moses at Freedom Summer 50th in Jackson, MS.

Her father’s method of teaching math was eye opening. His technique of viewing the classroom as a meeting space, drawn from his experience of organizing in the rural South, felt “very familiar… but at the same time, it was so different from anything else that I have experienced in all my education.” 

After graduating in 1991 Maisha  and the Algebra Project would become a 501(c)(3). What would she do next? Become an educator? No, she wanted more experience before stepping into that role. Pursue a master’s degree? Not yet, she didn’t have a clear path on what to study. What she did know was that she wanted to find her place and purpose to create systemic change, just as her parents and “extended family” had. “I felt like I had a lot to give, you know, having received so much. I had a sense of that.”

Maisha told her father she wanted to keep working with the Algebra Project.  “I didn’t see anything else that was hitting all the buttons for me like the Algebra Project.” So, he sent her to a junior high school in Oakland, California to help support teachers and implement the curriculum he had developed. She stayed in Oakland until 1997, helping shape the program to fit the school and its environment.

Maisha and the Young People’s Project (YPP)

While Maisha was in Oakland, her father and brothers were in Jackson, Mississippi establishing what would be the start of the Young People’s Project. Working with a group of students from Brinkley Middle School in an abandoned science classroom, they would play the flagway game and continue expanding their knowledge of mathematics.

Group of children playing
Children at Brinkley YPP

 

Man in black shirt speaking to class of students
Omo Facilitating Shelby

As the Moses brothers and students at Brinkley began laying the foundation for the YPP, Bob Moses called Maisha from Oakland to  have her help establish the budding organization. She was tasked with  developing a training program for the middle and high school students that would serve as math literacy workers. Years later, Bob Moses’s insight and Maisha’s leadership proved invaluable as YPP grew out of the classroom at Brinkley Middle and into other institutions of education. Omo Moses wrote  in his memoir “White Peril: A Family Memoir,” that Maisha’s involvement in the early stages of YPP “created space for the spirit of love to flourish” calling her YPP’s mother. 

The Young People’s Project Today

Today Maisha serves as the Executive Director of the Young People’s Project. For thirty years the organization has stayed true to its original cause of giving young people the space to organize and teach themselves and one another through mathematics. In 2005, support from the National Science Foundation made it possible to open a second office in Boston, with expansion into high schools in Chicago and Michigan soon after.. While maintaining close ties to the Algebra Project, YPP has also partnered with the Education Testing Service and, in 2015, extended its impact internationally by bringing the Flagway Tournament to Dublin, Ireland.  Grounded in its tradition of grassroots organizing, the organization also helped inspire “Finding Our Folk” (FOF), a student-led response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the government’s failure to respond effectively.

Woman in black shirt holding microphone
Maisha Moses at Flagway

The Young People’s Project offers two signature programs: the Flagway Tournament and Math Playground. Flagway™, a fast-paced, team-based math game, allows students to decode number patterns and race their solutions, building fluency, strategy, and pride. In 2025, YPP hosted its 9th National Flagway Tournament at the University of San Francisco, bringing together seven teams and about 200 students, educators, and families. Math Playground extends this work to broader audiences, creating interactive spaces where math becomes shared and engaging. YPP has facilitated seven Math Playgrounds across three states, reaching hundreds of participants, including more than 350 students and 225 community members. Together, these programs embody YPP’s mission to make math collaborative, empowering, and alive. The 10th Flagway Tournament will be hosted May 16th this year at MIT campus Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Group of students in black t-shirts posing for photograph

The growth of the Young People’s Project and Maisha as a leader and math literacy expert is a testament to the power of the organizing spirit as it has transformed over time. The Young People’s project remains rooted in the belief that young people have the ability to lead their own learning and transform their own communities, just as Maisha has remained rooted within the legacy of her parents’ work. Together they continue to carry the spirit of the movement forward.

And Don’t Forget!

The 10th National Flagway™ Tournament and Math Playground

May 16, 2026 | 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM | MIT Campus (Cambridge, MA)

The 10th National Flagway™ Tournament and Math Playground is a dual-format, youth-led celebration of math literacy bringing together students, families, educators, and community partners on the MIT campus during the 2026 Year of Math.

The day begins with the Math Playground—an open, family-friendly arena featuring 25+ interactive math games designed for K–8 learners and led by high school Math Literacy Workers (MLWs). Participants can explore hands-on activities that make math creative, collaborative, and accessible for all ages.

The event culminates in the National Flagway™ Tournament, a fast-paced, team-based competition built on the Möbius function, where middle school teams are coached by high school MLWs using YPP’s distinctive near-peer leadership model. Students don’t just solve math problems—they strategize, move, collaborate, and lead!

Families, educators, and supporters are invited to attend, observe, participate, and celebrate a public vision of math where leadership, inclusion, and opportunity take center stage.This is a free event! 

Register Here!

Watch a preview of the event here!

Events, Exhibits, Featured, Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library, Symposia and Conferences

Franklin Research Center Announces the Opening of the Sylvia Wynter Papers, Exhibition, and Symposium

Post contributed by John B. Gartrell, director John Hope Franklin Research Center 

The John Hope Franklin Research Center is pleased to share that the archive of philosopher, scholar, and author Sylvia Wynter will be opened to the public beginning March 3. The archive, which was acquired by the center in 2018, has been undergoing processing for the past 2 years and the writings series will be made available first to researchers, with the remaining sections of the collection opening by the summer of this year.

sepia colored headshot photo of Sylvia Wynter
Sylvia Wynter photo, 1970s

To commemorate and share the contents within the papers, the Franklin Research Center is mounted an exhibition entitled “Noise up the World: Introducing the Archive of Sylvia Wynter,” which will be on display in the Mary Duke Biddle Room in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Library from February 26-August 1. This exhibition is co-curated by John B. Gartrell, Dr. Deborah Jenson, Diego Avila Lopez, and Michaelle Vilmont.

Two events will kickoff the exhibition and opening of the papers. On Monday, March 2, there will be an opening reception from 5:30-7:00pm and Tuesday, March 3, the “Archive as Ceremony” symposium will occur from 8:30am-4:30pm. Both events will take place in the Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room 153 of the Rubenstein Library. The symposium is co-sponsored by the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History & Culture, Department of Romance Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.

collage of writings for event poster
Archive as Ceremony Symposium flyer, March 2 and 3

Any researchers wishing to use the collection should register a research account and order materials prior to their visit. The collection guide for the papers is now live – https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/wyntersylvia. For any additional inquires, please contact the Franklin Research Center – franklin-collection@duke.edu.

Program for “Archive as Ceremony,” March 3, 2026 (Holsti-Anderson Assembly Room, Rubenstein 153)

9:00am – Light breakfast

9:30am – Opening Remarks

9:45am – Keynote Address, Anthony Bogues, Asa Messer Professor of Humanities and Africana Studies, Affiliated Professor of History of Art and Political Science, Brown University, “Archives : Black radical/ anti-Colonial Thought / Theory and History Making”

10:30 Discussant: Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Associate Professor of Literature, Duke University

10:45-11:00, Q&A

11:00-11:15 Break

11:15-12:00 Roundtable, “Organized Noise: Processing and Making Public the Sylvia Wynter Papers”, with John B. Gartrell, Tracy Jackson, Russell-Flowers Technical Services Archivist, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and Bedour Alagraa, Assistant Professor of Political and Social Thought in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin

Noon-1:00 Lunch Break

1:00 Panel, “The Discovery Archive and the Journey Toward the Human”

Diego Ávila López, Doctoral Student in Romance Studies, “Navigating 1492: Sylvia Wynter and the Colonial in the Archive”

Michaelle Vilmont, Doctoral Student in Romance Studies, “Who Brings Society Into Being? Sylvia Wynter, Frantz Fanon, and the Genres of Being Human”

1:45 Discussants: Richard Rosa, Associate Professor of Romance Studies, Duke University; Tony Ballas, Doctoral Student in Literature, Duke University

2:00 Q&A

2:15 Panel, “Wynter from Subsistence to Catastrophe”

Bedour Alagraa, Assistant Professor of Political and Social Thought in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, “The Interminable Catastrophe”

Isabel Bradley, Assistant Professor of French Literature, Thought, and Culture, New York University, “On Subsistence and the Sociogenic Principle”

3:00 Discussants: Anne-Maria Makhulu, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University; Laurent Dubois, John L. Nau III Bicentennial Professor in the History & Principles of Democracy at the University of Virginia

3:15 Q&A

3:30-3:45 Break

3:45 Epilogue: Deborah Jenson, Professor Emeritus of Romance Studies, Duke University, “Sylvia Wynter: Human Autonomy and the ‘Cognitive Charter’”

4:00 Discussant: Felwine Sarr, Anne-Marie Bryan Distinguished Professor of French, Duke University

4:15-4:30 Q&A

Thanks to the facilitation of Professor Anthony Bogues, the John Hope Franklin Research Center was able to acquire the papers of Sylvia Wynter in 2018. Over the last 2.5 years, the archive has been painstakingly organized and prepared to be shared with the wide range of scholars from those who know Wynter’s work intimately to those who are only discovering her voice. A small team here are Duke, including scholars, graduate students, the staff of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library and the Duke University Libraries exhibition team has dedicated this past year to commemorate the opening access to these papers with this symposium and exhibition which serve as a prelude to the seeds of future events involving the large and distinguished community of Sylvia Wynter scholars, students and researchers whom we acknowledge humbly and respectfully.

Archive of Documentary Arts, Bingham Center, Do Your Research, Featured, Franklin Research Center, Hartman Center, History of Medicine, Human Rights Archive, Travel Grants

Research Travel Grants Open for 2026 – 2027

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library is now accepting applications for the 2026 – 2027 Research Travel Grant Programs, offering awards of up to $1,500 to support research projects associated with the following collecting Centers, subject areas, and collection holdings:

  • Archive of Documentary Arts General Grant
  • Archive of Documentary Arts Sidney Gamble Travel Grant
  • Doris Duke Foundation Travel Grant
  • Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Travel Grant
  • Harry H. Harkins, Jr. T’73 Travel Grant
  • History of Medicine Collections
  • Human Rights Archive
  • John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History
  • John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History
  • Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture (Mary Lily Research Grants)

Anyone whose research would be supported by resources from the Rubenstein Library’s research centers is eligible to apply. We encourage applications from students at any level of education; faculty and teachers; visual and performing artists; writers; filmmakers; public historians; and independent researchers.

For assistance determining the eligibility of your project, please contact AskRL@duke.edu with the subject line “Travel Grants.”

Eligibility

Applicants must reside beyond a 100-mile radius of Durham, N.C., and may not be current Duke students or employees.

Information Session

An online information session will be held Wednesday, January 14, 2026, 2-3 PM EST. This program will review application requirements, offer tips for creating a successful application, and include an opportunity for attendees to ask questions of staff involved with the travel grant program. This information session will be recorded and posted online afterwards. You can register for the session here.

Timeline

The deadline for application will be Friday, February 27, at 8:00 PM EST. Decisions will be announced by the end of April 2026 for travel during May 2026 – June 2027. Awards are paid as reimbursements for personal expenses after completion of the research visit(s).

Featured, Franklin Research Center

A Black August Booklist, But Make it SNCCY!

Submitted by Mattison H. Bond, Movement History Initiative Coordinator

February is traditionally associated as the month in which we focus on the history and achievements of African Americans within the United States. But as information becomes more accessible and widespread more people have realized that Black history cannot be contained within a single month, and August is just as important a month for the Black community as February is.

What is Black August?

The origins of Black August began during the later end of the Black liberation movement, during the 1960s and 70s. As the nonviolent, peaceful mobilizations of the Civil Rights Movement began to transform into the direct-action campaigns of the Black Power Movement (sparked by SNCC’s Stokely Carmichael one hot night in Greenwood, MS, nearing the end of the Meredith March for Freedom), the formation of the nascent Black Panther Party come to the forefront of the movement bringing with them renewed energies toward self-sustainability and revolutionary theories and practices.

George Jackson, revolutionary and member of the Black Panther Party became a symbol of resistance while in prison. Incarcerated at a young age in 1961, Jackson was exposed to radical liberation politics by fellow inmates. Emboldened by this philosophy , he and his comrades dedicated themselves to organizing within the prison system, leading study groups and even starting a chapter of the Black Panther Party within the San Quentin Prison.

It was in 1971, a year after the killing of his brother, Jonathan, and other political prisoners, that George Jackson was assassinated by a prison guard within Soledad Prison. The death of these two brothers, along with the death of other political prisoners sparked widespread organizing and advocacy within the prison system.

Black August was celebrated for the first time in 1979 within San Quentin prison, where George Jackson and his comrades breathed their last breath. In remembrance of their lives and the decade of the liberation struggle within prisons, a moment of connection to centuries of Black resistance that served as a precedent, Black August came to symbolize a broader struggle for liberation and justice, particularly in response to enduring racial and social inequities.

How Can You Participate?

When Black August was first celebrated within the walls of the California San Quentin prison, prisoners in solidarity wore black armbands on their left arms and dedicated time to study books about revolutions and liberation, specifically focusing on the writings of George Jackson. In that same spirit, Black August continues to be a month of remembrance, education, and meditation toward the fight for liberation. During the month, celebrators dedicate their time to “study, fast, train, [and] fight.”

A Black August Booklist, But Make it SNCCY!

With an emphasis on STUDY here are some books written by members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of the 1960s. Dedicated to the liberation of all people by means of impowering local people and communities, with education and nonviolent/political training, there is much to be learned about the fight for liberation between the pages of these featured books.

“This Nonviolent Stuff will Get you Killed”
by Charlie Cobb
“The Making of Black Revolutionaries”
by James Forman
“Hands on the Freedom Plow”
Editor Judy Richardson
“Ready for Revolution”
by Stokely Carmichael
“I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle”
by Charles Payne
“The Courage to Hope: How I Stood Up to the Politics of Fear”
by Shirley Sherrod

 

 

Want to read more from the veterans of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee? Check out the SNCC 60th Anniversary program agenda[SNCC-Agenda-v6.pdf] (start on p. 27) for more books by SNCC veterans.

And for a deeper context, check out the “Meet the Authors: A Legacy of Excellence in SNCC Literature – 19 Authors, 1 Movement” [Meet the Authors of the SNCC 60th Anniversary Conference – SNCC Legacy Project] videos, where 19 authors gather for one-on-one interviews to talk about their experiences within organizing that lead to their written materials.

Featured, Franklin Research Center, History of Medicine, Travel Grants

The Complicated Legacies of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company

Post contributed by Michael Ortiz-Castro, PhD, Lecturer, Department of History, Bentley University. Micheal was a recipient of the John Hope Franklin Research Center Travel Grant & Elon Clark History of Medicine Travel Grant. 

Life insurance seems, perhaps, like one of the duller aspects of adulthood. For late 19th century Americans, life insurance represented and marshalled a number of concerns and anxieties about value, life, and community. Coming to force in the mid to late 1800s, life insurance—acquiring it, maintaining it, using it, and its meaning—all intertwined with questions about race, nation, and community—not surprising given that life insurance dealt with some of the most intimate aspects of individuals’ lives—their health, the health of their families, and the economic and social wellbeing.

As a historian of citizenship, my research discusses the history of life insurance as part of a broader analysis of the transformation of ideas of citizenship in the wake of the civil war. My book project, presently titled Acts of Citizenship: Belonging and Biology in Post-Reconstruction America, discusses life insurance in the context of the language companies used to sell policies to Americans, how folks in and outside the industry discussed the business of calculating the value of human lives, and the industry’s associated practices. These practices had a vision of citizenship yoked to ideas of biology and racial purity and helped shape the culture of life insurance—which would come to center round keywords like race, family, and citizen. At its intellectual heart was a project of racial differentiation, materialized in Irving Hoffman’s “Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro”. Written in his capacity as Statistician for the Prudential Life Insurance Company, the tract used mortality rates to not only advocate for denying insurance policies to black Americans, but to popularize the “extinction thesis”, a theory that black Americans were simply biologically unfit for equality.

What did black Americans make of this evolving discourse? With the generous support of the History of Medicine Collections and the John Hope Franklin Research Center at the Rubenstein Library, I began to answer this question by consulting the records of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, the largest black-owned life insurance company in the nation. Their records highlight the complicated place of black life insurance companies in the economic landscape; they highlight the complicated ways in which black Americans sought to both prove their fitness for citizenship and resist the terms that condemned death to permanent exclusion.

**

Black life insurance companies like North Carolina Mutual grew in a lacuna. The first black insurance companies came up to help black Americans cover funeral costs; North Carolina Mutual marketed itself as a life-oriented project; like other life insurance companies, the stated goal of North Carolina Mutual was to “help Negroes … accumulate … a fortune in life”, to make burial insurance unnecessary. Though life insurance companies faced significant headwinds in their early days due to the perceived sacrilege of putting a value to human life, they participated in and benefitted from a cultural transformation that saw it worthwhile to invest in one’s own life.

North Carolina Mutual’s insistence that black lives could yield value for the user was complicated for two reasons. The first reason was that, according to white insurers, black lives were too risky to include in the risk pool—better to keep them out, for no value or benefit could be generated for the community. In constructing their own risk pool, North Carolina Mutual posited a different vision of the community. However, the notion that black lives could yield value for their owner drew eerie parallels to the slave insurance policies of the antebellum era—it had been commonplace for owners to ensure the lives of their slaves and receive payment in the case of death. In attempting to both affirm and challenge the prevailing association between value, appreciation, and race, North Carolina Mutual affirmed that black lives were appreciable assets—and could be a boon when that wealth was owned by the individual themselves. This logic seems to have been a motivating factor for other black-owned business companies—for example, as seen below, the Atlanta Life Insurance Company similarly sold its mission as “a dream to develop economic independence” among black Americans.

North Carolina Mutual insisted on more than just that black lives could be considered appreciable assets. At the heart of their industry was the assumption that black lives were insurable to begin with—that is to say, a good risk. To do so, it had to assert that black lives were not, say, any riskier than white customers. One bulletin from Clyde Donnell, the Medical Director, makes the logic clear. An excerpt of the document, which discussed tuberculosis mortality rates among black Americans, can be seen below. Below that, you can see another piece, also written by Donnell, which discusses the issue of finding enough black Americans to ensure.

The doctor’s argument in both documents once more ambivalently positions black American’s health to that of their white counterparts. White insurance executives, like Hoffman, argued that high mortality rates across diseases between black and white Americans was indicative of innate biological inferiority. Black intellectuals like W.E.B. DuBois often tried to argue that these disparities were the result of racist measurements and biases; in his magisterial The Health and Physique of the Negro American, DuBois used modern sociological methods to prove that, in aggregate, mortality rates were consistent across race according to class. This was not the strategy of North Carolina Mutual—they affirmed the notion that black folks did in fact have higher mortality rates. However, rather than cast these higher mortality rates as evidence of biological inferiority, Dr. Donnell instead asserts that this means that white folk should become more invested in the uplift of black Americans—“the negro means much to the economic welfare of the southern white man”. In the latter, Donnell references the environmental factors DuBois preferred while maintaining the fact of disparate health outcomes according to race. In tying their destinies together, Donnell’s logic resisted the idea that a white America was the inevitable result.

As materially important as it was for black Americans to have access to life insurance and the financial means to support themselves through death and emergencies, like other life insurance companies, North Carolina Mutual understood that its project was not just about securing the financial wellness of its members—no, the goal was to secure the political and economic uplifting of the people

This can be seen below, where the writings double as political mission: “it is better not to have lived, than to have lived and not contributed anything to the success of any one else’s life”.

At the time of its founding, North Carolina Mutual found itself serving a community that had achieved massive cultural victories alongside the entrenchment of Jim Crow in the South. As a business that believed in racial uplift, it relied on the language of progress and assimilation evinced by leading intellectuals by Booker T Washington. However, as a business oriented towards the advancement of black Americans in the face of racism, it had to take a stand on discourses of racial inferiority. Life insurance singularly combined questions of individual health and the future of the community that animated many of the driving cultural transformations of the late 19th century—the records of NC Mutual prove useful in understanding how black Americans navigated their place in the nation, and how the fight for equality extended to the domain of health, wellness, and the everyday.

Featured, Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections

Remembering the Legacy of SNCC Veteran and Folklorist Worth Long. (Jan. 15th 1936- May 8, 2025)

Post contributed by Mattison Bond, Coordinator, Movement History Initiative

image of Worth Long with hat, glasses, goatee, and African print shirt
Photo of Worth Long taken from SNCClegacyproject.org

On May 8, 2025 Worth Westinghouse Long Jr., Folklorist and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (also known as SNCC) Veteran passed away. The Franklin Research Center and Rubenstein Library mourns this lost and remembers his contributions as not only an activist, but also as a cultural archivist and true Durham native.

Black and white mugshot of Worth Long arrested
Worth Long’s Alabama State Police file, undated, Alabama Photographs and Pictures Collection, ADAH. Photo found at https://snccdigital.org/people/worth-long/

Long joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1963, organizing in Selma, Alabama, during a pivotal time in the Civil Rights Movement. He would later become a nationally recognized folklorist, committed to preserving and celebrating Black cultural traditions. His work with the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Library of Congress helped amplify the voices, music, and stories of Black communities across the South.

A proud son of Durham’s Hayti community, Long’s legacy bridges activism and cultural memory. We are grateful for his life and his enduring contributions to justice and history.

To learn more about Worth Long and his legacy:

Worth Long Profile on SNCC Digital Gateway https://snccdigital.org/people/worth-long/

In Memoriam: Worth Long by Charlie Cobb https://sncclegacyproject.org/in-memoriam-worth-long/

“Organizers Influence other Organizers: Being SNCCy with Worth Long” https://youtu.be/5duRa3LFumA?feature=shared

“Outsinging Trouble” By Worth Long and Emile Crosby https://sncclegacyproject.org/outsinging-trouble/

Interviews

Civil Rights History Project Interview completed by the Southern Oral History Program under contract to the Smithsonian Institution ’s National Museum of African American History & Culture and the Library of Congress, 2015 https://www.crmvet.org/nars/long_w.pdf

Molly McGehee, “You Do Not Own What You Cannot Control: An Interview with Activist and Folklorist Worth Long,” Mississippi Folklife (Fall 1998), 12-20. https://snccdigital.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/10_Worth-Long-Interview-with-Molly-McGhee.docx.pdf

John Hope Franklin Research Center

SNCC Legacy Project Critical Oral History Conference Interviews at Duke’ Center for Documentary Studies https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/cdssncccriticaloh

The Charlie Cobb Interviews, 2012-2014 Collection

The SNCC Digital Gateway Project Files, 2002- 2018 (bulk 2010-2018) Collection: