We invite you to contribute your thoughts, experiences, and digitized personal artifacts to the Brooklyn Resists community collecting initiative. Please review our guidelines below before submitting content.
Guidelines and Statement of Purpose
Through this collecting initiative, the Center for Brooklyn History seeks to preserve and make accessible community-generated, original digital content that was captured and created for, at, and in response to the protests, demonstrations, uprisings, rallies, memorials, vigils, and community meetings in Brooklyn that followed the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, Tony McDade, Daunte Wright, and many others. This community collecting initiative will take the form of a digital repository hosted by Urban Archive.
Why are we collecting materials related to the protests?
Our goal is to create a digital repository that provides diverse perspectives of the events surrounding past and present racial justice movements. We want to provide a platform to encourage Brooklynites to share how they responded to systemic racial injustice, and connect the protest movement of the present to the generations of activists and leaders who came before. Contributors to this archive will lead, shape, and move the conversation about racial injustice forward.
What are we collecting?
Participants are invited to contribute original digital content such as documents, oral histories, artwork, photographs (especially of signs, murals, memorials, etc.), and ephemera (i.e. protest signs, event flyers). For the purposes of this project, we are only accepting digital materials (digital-first or digitized versions of materials), not original materials.
What platform are we using for the Brooklyn Resists digital repository?
Our digital object collection platform is Urban Archive, a map-based digital storytelling platform that partners with libraries, museums, and historical societies to enhance collection engagement.
What happens to my content once it's uploaded?
Contributed content is subject to an evaluation and approval process. If accepted into the digital repository, contributed content will become publicly available on our site. Materials may also be permanently archived.
What criteria are we using to approve content?
- The material is relevant to our collecting area.
- The descriptive information submitted through our form is complete and accurate.
- Users certify that they have the right to submit content and it does not infringe on any known copyright restrictions.
- Content does not provide identifying or personal information of the contributor or any other individual depicted, including but not limited to address, phone number, organizational affiliation, etc.
- The content does not pose a risk to any person or organization.
What are our considerations around collecting protest images?
We are committed to providing a publicly accessible record of the movement for racial justice.
We are also committed to cultivating participatory and post-custodial models of crowd collecting on this site, which prioritize the individuals and the communities represented and focus on creating access to a version of the historical record that includes all voices.
For more information about community collecting guidelines please check out the work of the following organizations: WITNESS, Project STAND, Documenting the Now and The Blackivists.
Requesting Takedowns
We encourage participants who would like to see an image removed, need technology assistance, or would simply like to ask a question or make a comment, to contact us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org. If you appear in an image and are concerned about it being available online, please contact us and include your information and the related URL or image call number.
Privacy and Access Restriction
All digital content uploaded to the Brooklyn Resists site will be covered by a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Users are free to share and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes as long as appropriate credit is given to the source and new material created with this work is shared under the same conditions.
