When I consider the use and purpose of archiving, I remark on the practitioner and the collection as entangled. My archival work includes personal narrative with collections of choice housed at the Lesbian Herstory Archives. I am in conversation and community with the women of the Salsa Soul Sisters and have written about this relationship in The City Amplified: Oral Histories and Radical Archives in an article, titled: “Archiving Black Lesbians in Practice: The Salsa Soul Sisters Archival Collection.”

---

Select Archival Events & Exhibitions

2019
Event co-organizer, Salsa Soul Sisters: Honoring Lesbians of Color with the Lesbian Herstory Archives, featuring Cassandra Grant, Imani Rashid, Roberta Oloyade Stokes, with opening remarks by First Lady of New York, Chirlane McCray, Women’s History Salon, New-York Historical Society, 15 November 2019.

Exhibition co-curator and event organizer, Salsa Soul Sisters: Honoring Lesbians of Color with the Lesbian Herstory Archives, Brooklyn College Library, 26 August – 10 November 2019.

2018
Exhibition co-curator and event organizer, Salsa Soul Sisters: Honoring Lesbians of Color with the Lesbian Herstory Archives, EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, 9 May – 29 June 2018.

2017
Event co-organizer, Unveiling the Archives: A Paneled Reading, Co-sponsored with the Graduate Center Library and the Queens College Louis Armstrong Archives Writers in Residence Program, The Graduate Center, 24 February 2017.

2016
Exhibition co-curator and team lead, Graphic Activism: Lesbian Graphic Posters, Graduate Center main lobby (affront the Segal Theater), June 2016 – September 2016, Graduate Center Library, June 2016 – December 2016.

2013
Exhibition curator, Activist Women’s Voices Special Collection, Graduate Center Library exhibition cases, January 2013 – June 2013.

“Collecting Oral Histories and Providing Archival Access.” The Finding Aid : Black Women at the Intersection of Art and Archiving, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, 21 May 2013. Invited Speaker

2010

Panel organizer and moderator and conference planning committee, “Black Lesbian Herstory in the 1970s : From South Africa to Amerika Archival Presentation.” In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives in the 70s Fall Festival; sponsored by Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS), CUNY, 08 October 2010.

---

Select Presentations in Archiving

05/5-6/2016
Gay American History @ 40 Conference
May 5-6, 2016, in New York City
Panel Title: Capturing, Preserving, Creating History, 40 years at the Lesbian Herstory Archives w/Morgan Gwenwald

02/25/2016
Panel @ Critical Libraries and Pedagogies Symposium (CLAPS), University of Arizona
Panel Title: Archives & Archival Objects as Pedagogical Tools for Librarian Engagement with Kate Adler

08/12/2015*
Lesbian Herstory Archives – Women & Words
An evening of reading, performance, refreshments, raffles, and laughter by Women Writers of African Descent.

04/12/2014
Panel @ Radical Archives Conference
Panel Title: Lesbian Archives Roundtable (with Ellen Gruber Garvey, Lisa Merrill, Margaret Galvan, Rachel Corbman, Flavia Rando)
Paper: Brief history of the Lesbian Herstory Archives and the Narrative of Erasure in the herstory of Archiving Black Lesbians

02/7-10/2013
Panel @ IvyQ 2013: the Fourth Annual Ivy League LGBTQ Conference at Yale University
Paper: Collecting oral histories and providing archival access
Workshop Title: Lesbian activism 1970 to present with the Lesbian Herstory Archives
Paper: LGBT digital and differently formatted collections as primary source materials

11/17/2012 *
Audre Lorde & Adrienne Rich Marathon Reading @ Lesbian Herstory Archives
Presentation: Letter from Joan Nestle to Shawnta Smith: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich: Two Pioneering Friends of LHA

09/28/2012
Panel @ SAGE Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders
Panel Title: The Lesbian Herstory Archives
Paper: Black lesbians in the 70’s and before : at home tour at the Lesbian Herstory Archives

05/20/2011
Panel Leader @ The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
Panel Title: The Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Film Project
Paper: Archiving Black lesbian elders with Tiona McClodden and Lisa C. Moore

10/14/2010
Guest Lecture @ Eugene Lang College with Instructor Ronak K. Kapadia
Course Name: Queering the Media; Paper: Archives as evidence

10/8/2010 *
Archival Presentation; Moderator and Panelist @ In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives
Panel Title: Black lesbian herstory in the 1970s : From South Africa to Amerika in the 70s Fall Festival; sponsored by Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY

Panelist, 20th Anniversary Archive : The Importance of Archiving to Preserve Our LGBT History with David Carter, George Chauncey, Rich Wandel, Maxine Wolfe, Center Archives, The LGBT Community Center, New York, 07 October 2010.

2008

“Authors’ Intention as Narrative: Archiving Lesbian Identities.” Archiving and the Politics of Identity, International GLBT ALMS (Archivists, Librarians, Museum Curators, and Special Libraries) Conference, The Graduate Center, 08 May 2008.

---

* Also a co-coordinator for event