The Fight For Knowledge is a digital repository that aims to provide increased access and interaction with private and public collections documenting personal and communal narratives of Virginia’s civil rights history. This archive presents historical photographs, newspaper articles, census data, audio recordings, video, interviews, letters and files of other physical objects that visitors can explore and download. We understand that one of the growing challenges for privately owned archives and educational institution is being able to attract new audiences for their important archival collections in an age of digital media. As such, The Fight For Knowledge is built on the Omeka Open Source software and shares some of its content under the educational Creative Commons (CC) license. A resurgent spirit of collaboration between public and private institutions offers us new avenues of exploration and access to existing archival collections. This digital repository takes full advantage of the best in traditional preservation practices and offers a flexible platform where private and public institutions can reimagine best-practices models for collecting, curating and exhibiting communal cultural memory.
The wealth of materials in this collection could not have been possible without the deep commitment to public education from The Valentine Richmond History Center, Virginia Commonwealth University’s Special Collections, University of Richmond’s Boatwright Library and the Digital Scholarship Lab, The Special Collections at the L. Douglas Wilder Library at Virginia Union University, E. Bell, Richmond City Public Schools, members of several George Wythe High School’s Alumni groups and other community partners that have generously shared their technical expertise, donated their time and made their valuable archival materials available for this collaborative venture.