Wednesday November 21st, 9:00am-9:45am @ Soundings Theatre

The Community is the Archive: Documenting Social Justice Activism in the Age of Social Media

Bergis Jules (@bergisjules) is the Director of Equity Initiatives at Shift Design Inc https://shiftdesign.org/ and the Project Director for Documenting the Now https://www.docnow.io/, a project which seeks to develop tools and practices that can facilitate the ethical collection, use, and access to archival content generated from the web and social media.

The work of Documenting the Now was initially developed in 2014 to support archiving of the protests and activism that took place in Ferguson, Missouri after the murder of Michael Brown, and as those activities played out on social media. Jules’ work also involves helping community-based archives, especially those documenting the lives of marginalized people, to build capacity and achieve long-term sustainability.

He is passionate about helping these vital cultural heritage spaces continue to exist independently and as legitimate sites where historical inquiry can take place. Jules' previous community-based archives work includes leading programs at the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, developing the D.C. Africana Archives Project, and helping to lead the Diversifying the Digital Historical Record national forums.

He received an M.A. in Library and Information Science and an M.A. in African American and African Diaspora Studies from Indiana University. He is currently a doctoral student in the Public History program at the University of California, Riverside where his research focuses on representations of African Americans in web archives.