Connecting all who seek to document, share, understand and
preserve Black experiences.
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The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is a Chicago-based membership association of libraries, universities, museums, community/arts organizations and other archival institutions. The BMRC’s mission is to connect all who seek to document, share, understand and preserve Black experiences.
It is the vision of the BMRC to be essential to promoting discovery, preservation, and use of Black historical collections. Through consortial programs, the BMRC aids in expanding broad access to its members’ holdings of materials that document African American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago.
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When NBFO dissolved in 1975, Brenda Eichelberger, then president of the Chicago chapter, decided to respond to an increase in local, national and international Black feminist struggle by organizing the National Alliance of Black Feminists, serving as its first executive director. The organization opened its national offices at 202 South State Street, Chicago, Illinois in May, 1976. The group held a three day conference, "A Meeting of the Minds: A National Conference for, by and about Black Women" in Chicago in 1977. The NABF put forth a Black Women's Bill of Rights that included the non-racist and non-sexist portrayal of African-American women in advertising, television, film, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, and all other mass media as a fundamental right. The NABF also sought to improve African-American women's education, social status, economic circumstances, and professional prospects.
NABF collections are held at two BMRC member institutions.
* University of Illinois at Chicago, Special Collections (Richard J. Daley Library)
*The Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection, Woodson Regional Library, Chicago
Public Library System
Find out about many of Chicago's rich primary resources related to Black history and culture now made accessible in one place! The BMRC Archives Portal helps researchers of all ages and levels broaden and refine their search for information about collections held within member institutions, including libraries, special collections and archives, museums, and community organizations.
Image: Ida B. Wells, activist, journalist, teacher, and anti-lynching crusader, pictured wearing a button she created to publicize a memorial service for African American combatants court-martialed and hanged in Houston. -- University of Chicago Library, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center
UChicago Library News Site Post:
Sumayya Ahmed will be joining the Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) and the University of Chicago Library as Executive Director of the BMRC on January 16. In this role, Ahmed will provide strategic leadership and operational management for the BMRC’s activities.
Ahmed comes to the BMRC from Simmons University in Boston, where she worked as an Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science. As an archives educator and scholar, she taught graduate courses in Archival Studies for students pursuing the MLIS degree at Simmons and, prior to that, at University College London’s global campus in Doha, Qatar. Originally from Chicago, Ahmed earned her PhD in Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, and a BA in African American Studies and Sociology from Wesleyan University.
A member of the Society of American Archivists, Ahmed serves on the board of the Archival Education and Research Initiative and the Center for Maghrib Studies at Arizona State University. She is the co-editor of the Routledge Studies in Archives Series and has published on archives in North Africa as well as race and equity within the library, archives, and museum sector.
