The Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive is Real!!
- Below are the comments I gave at the October 19, 2024 Celebration of the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive, hosted by Nandita Mani, Dean of the Libraries at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archive Research Center, attended by @UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes, and amazing musical performancr by Connie Fredericks Malone, whose late sister, Carole Fredericks — a Paris sensation in the group Fredericks Jones and Goldman — will be preserved in the BFA.
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There are few things
that can move one to tears
and cause anyone to pause
and reflect with gratitude —
for example, the birth of a child; the orange sun setting on a yellow horizon;
the varied shades of blue of the warm Caribbean sea —
And then there is tonite.
As I stand here, I pause to reflect, and to look out over this extraordinary gathering of people.
I want You to pause, and look around you.
Now take a minute to reflect: in this historical moment of what UMass Foundation VP Kimberly Dumpson
calls “the fierce urgency of now,” —in this moment when we know barriers are being erected like the legislation already passed in various states hellbent on historical erasure and the sanitizing of American history around such events as the enslavement of Black people in America, in this fierce urgency of now, consider this question:
when was the last time you saw such a unique assemblage of diverse folk join together because they were ALL committed to the same endeavor — — A Celebration of the LEGACY, I have built in the form of the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive?
This gathering is one of those things that brings me close to tears!
I wish to thank each and every one of you for being here today: my family, my daughter Zena Carlota Allen and my son Antonio Maceo Allen,
my personal friends and former students, colleagues I have known for decades,
old and new ones for only a few months or years, all too numerous to name; UMASS faculty and administrators, especially the Dean of the Library and now the new Deputy Chancellor Nandita Mani who has made the Black Feminist Archive one of the many jewels in her crown of leadership,
the staff of SCUA — including the late Robert Cox, Danielle Kovacs, Aaron Rubenstein, and Adam Ware and the BFA Afro-Am student interns who I have come to know and appreciate —
the UMass Foundation staff — Jeffery Rothenberg, Kimberly Dumpson, and Marco Monoc — Thank You All.
I also wish to thank the newest UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes; though we have never met, I am honored that you found the the time to be here and celebrate with us tonight.
Finally, I thank all the women and men (or their families) who have already contributed their materials , as well as those who are planning to do so in the near future —
your materials are the life force of the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive; they are the foundation of this archival home I am building that is dedicated to “Making Black Women Visible & Heard.” Asè!
A Bit about the BFA Journey:
Getting here — to this very moment tonite — was not always easy. It has been, and still is, a route that is not always easy to navigate, and it has not been without its bumps, turns, and divergencies. But I have stayed the course, and under the current Dean of the Library, Nandita Mani, with the support of the SCUA staff, the road has smoothed out and fewer obstacles have arisen.
The BFA Origins Story:
The gestation of the BFA began in 2014 with a cold call to the late Robert Cox, then Director of SCUA, which now carries his name.
After a 45 minute conversation, in which I shared my vision of preserving my own archival “stuff”, as well as the “stuff” of other Black women, indigenous women, women of color, femme-identifying persons, and our allies of all persuasions, Rob sent me a two page email the next day.
He wrote in 2014:
Yesterday is certainly one of those days I will remember thanks to you, and I cannot say enough how thrilled I am that you reached out to us. We have a saying in Special Collections that we don’t have six degrees of separation in western New England, it’s more like two, and you’re proof. Your connections and ours seem to overlap in so many interesting ways, with some many layers. And layered is what this overly long email will be! Let me dive in with a little bit about the process of donating a collection and say up front that we would be honored to have your papers here … That you can bank on. …”
Without question, Rob’s enthusiasm and support, up until his death, made me feel “Visible and Heard” as I set about establishing the Black Feminist Archive (BFA) a Reality.
I stand before you today to attest that my vision has morphed into a sustainable entity. In 2016, I formally announced the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive as my gift back to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. We are ALL here today — 8 years later — to celebrate it as a living reality. The IRMA MCCLAURIN BLACK FEMINIST ARCHIVE IS REAL!!!
In 2023, Robert Cox wrote me some final words before he died, in response to my email in which I thanked him for his support and said he was very much a part of the history of the BFA and our correspondence would be preserved.
His response:
“…Gonna try again. Fingers are not cooperating!
I was saying that I have cause …[to be] grateful in all this. Yes, I’ve seen [to] detail[s] personally, but the fact [is] the project continues speaks well to what matters most: the people, the vision, the commitment. The SCUA staff could not be better: they’re lovely people, well experienced, and capable of great things every day. I’d never say so [to] their face, of course, but working [with] them occasionally [has] been a positive experience.
What I am most excited about [and] where [your] Wenner Gren [grant] will come in handiest, is that [you are ] approaching that critical mass where this set of chain reactions helps fuel the next. And yes, that’s me practicing physics without a license. Dont trust me, just dont.
Anyway, were at the threshold, and it doesn’t seem like I’ll be there to see the fruits, others will be.
Thanks for your persistence and for getting us this far. It’s about to get a whole lot easier, quick!
Stay well and safe,
— R”
This event today is a testament to the momentum of which Rob spoke.
The Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive is growing, people are contacting me and wanting to become a part of the BFA Family, or seek to understand how to go about what I call “archiving the self.”
Let me pause for a moment and ask:
How many of you have thought about archiving your stuff? Raise your hands.
How many of you don’t think what you have done is worthy of archiving? Raise your hands.
The Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive is on a mission to change. minds, to persuade Black women, indigenous women, women of color, non-white femme identifying persons, as well as our allies of every persuasion, that your stories as activists, artists, academics, community members, and family members, are worthy of being collected, documented, and preserved in the BFA Archival Home.
My good friend and activist, Dr. Kesho Scott, who is in Berlin, just landed yesterday, and managed to get involved in a protest alongside a 70 year old German grandmother, had this to say after signing her deed of gift in September 2024 to turn over almost 50 boxes, numerous awards, and a collection of almost 700 speeches she has given around the world:
That day, asking me what am I gonna do with my stuff was a watershed of a lot of things in my life. Just being asked that question made me have to amswer the second thing in my life — what stuff? — because I was someone who had not assigned all those things I did much value. And so that first question led me to revaluing what I have done. …I am absolutely honored that …the rest of humanity will have access to not only the work I have done, but nobody does work in a vacuum, and some of that work I did with you, and some of it I did for multiple reasons, but it will always be a truth that people have access to and that I think your gift to humanity has been [to create] a tool for people to have access to truth.”
Why is the BFA Important?
Because as Dr. Scott so eloquently put it, archives preserve truths and the Black Feminist Archive will preserve a range of truths from people like Dr. Scott, a global activist; Carole Fredericks who became a star in France and is buried there, but whose roots began up the road in Springfield, and whose sister Connie is here to share the family’s creativity and give us a glimpse of the treasures Carole’s archive will preserve, and then there are people like Miss Mae Upperman, not a marquee persona, who passed away last month, comfortable in the knowledge that the truth of her life in the form of her books and artwork are now preserved. And, there is Mrs. Edith Renfrow Smith, who is 110 years old, the oldest living alum of my alma mater Grinnell College, and the first Black woman to graduate, and who personally signed the deed of gift in September so that I could hand carry with me photos and letters, and other materials that date back to the early 1900s, or earlier.
More than an Archive
I have always envisioned the BFA to have a two-fold destiny: 1) to make its collections known to the world, and 2) to impact and diversify how archiving is practiced, and perhaps becoming a pipeline, through our BFA interns, to make the profession more inclusive.
Why UMASS AMHERST?
Let me close by stating I chose UMass Amherst to be the repository for the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive because so much of my academic life and professional career are linked to this institution.
Also, because it has. proven itself to be a keeper of truth with its preservation of the Du Bois Papers, naming the tallest academic library in the world after a Black intellectual, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the creation and support of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst as a public, land grant educational institution has a civic and social responsibility that I think is in alignment with the goals of the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive:
- to protect and preserve knowledge
- to use its resources to educate and inform the public throughout the state and beyond
- to champion and prepare students to enter a civil society rooted in democratic and socially responsible practices aimed at the inclusion of all its citizens.
I lived in Amherst, MA, probably the longest place of residence to date, my children were born here, my Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive will be preserved here, and. I will be buried here in Wildwood Cemetery, when the time comes.
I can think of no better place to put down the roots of the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive than at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Amherst, MA, where it is destined in the future to become the largest sustainable archive of its kind in the world dedicated to preserving the contributions of Black women primarily, but also Indigenous and other Women of Color, non-white femme identifying persons, and our allies of all persuasions.
For the support all of you present, as well as those unable to be here, have provided in the past and will continue to provide in the present and future, I say thank you. The Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive Endowment is alive and viable.
I personally have raised $30,000 since 2016 and pledged $25,000 (over time) of my own funds to this endeavor that I believe in with ALL MY HEART! I have also left funds in my estate to the BFA.
We also have a BFA Operating Fund that is used to support graduate students from the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies to work on processing the Papers and Collections so that they are available to the public!
I also publicly wish to thank the anonymous donor who generously gifted the BFA $10,000 on October 19, 2024!!!
The Black Feminist Archive will serve as a unique educational resource where anyone can discover the truths of social change through the BFA Papers and Collections.
Already, my photographs of iconic Black figures whom I met and got to know are having impact. They are being used on books covers, magazines, and in exhibits: James Baldwin, Emma Berdis Jones Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, and James Baldwin with other Black Writers and my mother. All the images below are part of a collection of 397 images (circa 1984–1991) digitized in the Irma McClaurin Papers in the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive. All images are copyrighted but can be requested through the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center (SCUSA).
I thank the each and every one of you present, as well as those unable to attend but who sent their greetings, with all my heart for the financial and moral support. you have given to me and this legacy venture in the past and what I know you will give in the present and the future.
I hope each one of you will ask yourself, “do I have an archive inside me?” And if the answer is yes, know that UMass has a space: an archival home, if you so desire, for your contributions to be made “Visible and Heard” and preserved for all of humanity.
Asé! So it will be.
(c) 2024 Irma McClaurin
To become part of the BFA: blackfeministarchive@gmail.com
To donate: https://bit.ly/blkfemminute
Irma McClaurin is an award-winning poet, academic and public writer who leads Irma McClaurin Solutions, a coaching and consulting company focused on transformational leadership, organizational culture change. She is a writing coach and offers clients Resilient and REInvention Coaching . The 25th Anniversary Edition of her award-winning edited book Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis and Poetics is now available from Rutgers University Press. Use RUP30 for discount and free shipping in the U.S.
