Dorothy Berry & Sumayya Ahmed on Archives

Archivist Dorothy Berry and Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) Director Sumayya Ahmed discuss the possibilities of Black archives within and outside of cultural heritage institutions. The event is held in at the Smart Museum in collaboration with .

Free; RSVP encouraged.

Dorothy Berry is an archivist and writer who works creatively to make archival collections related to Black life available more broadly. Those same archival methodologies influence her writing, which has appeared in publications including The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Public Domain Review, and Lapham’s Quarterly.

Sumayya Ahmed is Director of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, a Chicago-based association of libraries, universities, museums, and community and arts organizations that promote discovery, preservation, and use of Black historical collections.

Book cover of The House Archives Built and Other Thoughts on Black Archival Possibilities by Dorothy Berry. We Here Press, 2025.

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