There’s a reason the past is political.
History is powerful.
By providing context, fostering accountability, and guiding informed decision-making, archival evidence of the past plays a crucial role in the preservation of democratic institutions and societies world-wide.
Data wrought from slavery’s archive, therefore, both enriches the public’s understanding the past, but also demonstrates in factual and non-partisan terms the relationship between reckoning and repair, as well as the interrelatedness of freedom struggles past, present, and future.
“If, on the other hand, we are going to use history for our pleasure and amusement, for inflating our national ego, and giving us a false but pleasurable sense of accomplishment, then we must give up the idea of history either as a science or as an art using the results of science, and admit frankly that we are using a version of historic fact in order to infl uence and educate the new generation along the way we wish.” — W.E.B. Dubois