Summer Youth Archival Fellowship Program

In August 2019, Black Bottom Archives completed our inaugural cohort of the Black Bottom Archives Summer Archival Fellowship program for high school youth. This nine-week fellowship introduced youth participants to the skills, tools, and technologies needed for effective and community-centered archiving, interviewing and public speaking.

Tours, interviews, and guest presentations

We toured the areas in/around Downtown Detroit that comprised the historic Black Bottom neighborhood. We also visited the Burton Historical Collection, the Reuther Library, Bert’s Entertainment Complex, Detroit Historical Museum and Allied Media Projects and got to learn more about their contributions to historical preservation, media and technology. Guest speakers and presenters shared their talents, skills, and advice with the youth through workshops about digital storytelling, mapping and digital archival software, history, oral history collection and journalism.

fellowship projects

Throughout the fellowship, fellows worked on oral history and research projects that were centered around their individual interests and relationship to history and current realities in the city of Detroit. At the culmination of the program, fellows presented their projects in a community celebration event at the Main Branch of the Detroit Public Library to a dozen community members and supporters.