African-Americans Asked To Help Community Curation Program
DENVER (CBS4) - Preserving and remember Black History in Colorado is the mission of volunteers who are asking African-Americans in Denver to share their pictures and their stories.
Like so many of us, Barbara Anne Dozier learned much of what she knows about her family history from her parents.
"My mother before she died, she had a large collection of pictures and I followed the pictures to see what I could find out about the family."
Wednesday at the Blair-Caldwell library in Denver, she took advantage of the Robert F. Smith Community Curation Program to digitize her family history. It's a public outreach initiative by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American history and culture.
It encourages people to share their history. This week the group made a stop in Denver to document the history of African Americans in the west.
"These things were not included in the historical research, not included in the history books because they were not valuable. They were under the beds and in people's minds," said Charleszine "Terry" Nelson, the Sr. Special Collections and Community Resource Manager at the library.
This program aims to change that by collecting all those stories and pictures that have been left out of American history.
"There's so many different narratives, and to bring these stories together of this community does begin to thread together a stronger narrative of what went on here in Denver," Doretha Williams, the Program Manager of Robert F. Smith Fund, said.
That's important so future generations can learn about these founders of Colorado, and feel inspired by past.
"We are a people of fantastic abilities and we just haven't had the chance to talk about it," said Nelson.
LINK: Blair-Caldwell Library Community Curation Program
Michael Abeyta is a 4th generation Coloradan and a Multimedia Journalist for CBS4. His stories can be seen on CBS4 News at 5 & 6. He is on Twitter! Follow him @AbeytaCBS4.