As Black History Month comes to an end, here are some additional items which may be of interest. While February gives Special Collections & Archives the opportunity to focus on our collections in this area, we are always continually adding resources year-round for the Wake Forest campus community.

Recently Wake Forest and Winston-Salem State University celebrated the 60th anniversary of the student sit-in in the Winston-Salem downtown. While we don’t have any images of the event available as part of our collections (although we would very much like to!), we do have a photograph of the historic site sign installation. We also made the 40th anniversary booklet commemorating the event available as part of Digital Collections.  This commemoration was organized by G. McLeod (Mac) Bryant, whose papers we hold. As a reminder, event ephemera such as this can be so very valuable for capturing perspectives and memories which may not be recorded anywhere else.

As part of the Strength, Resolve, and Legacy programming to commemorate the 50th anniversary of African American women moving into the residence halls, I had the opportunity to interview Camille Russell Love, a Winston-Salem native, who was a day student at Wake Forest during this time period. The interview is available here. I will be interviewing the other women later this year, and an earlier interview with Beth Norbrey Hopkins is available as part of Digital Collections.

As Wake Forest has set the date for the next Commemoration of the Enslaved: Remember with Us (April 30, 5:00 pm, steps of Wait Chapel), the video from last year’s event is now available here. Again, please keep Special Collections & Archives in mind, if you attend any commemorative events through the year like these, we are always looking to add this kind of documentation to our collections. Please do not hesitate to contact us at archives@wfu.edu!