Join our longtime satellite partner Dr. Andre E. Johnson @aejohnsonphd.bsky.social on the Feb. 21 for the “Sanctuaries of Struggle: The Colored Conventions and the Black Church as Social Movement" symposium. Schedule and more info: www.facebook.com/events/75634...

Get ready for the... 🎂 Great Douglass Day Bake Off! 🎂 How to enter: 1. Bake a birthday cake! 2. Decorate it! 3. Post a photo on here or IG to #DouglassDay Competition is going to be fierce! Learn more & see past winners: douglassday.org/bake-off/

We can triple the Colored Conventions Digital Collection! Since 2023, the CCP research teams & satellite partners have focused on specific regions resulting in 3K new CC documents! Come thru, host an event, watch the broadcast, & help bring this history to digital life! douglassday.org

Shoutout to Alysha Press in the @unlv.edu Libraries’ Makerspace who created this 3D rendition of Saint Andrews AME Church, location of the first Colored Convention in the West. This is a key component of Frederick Douglass’ birthday cake - we are ready to win this year! @douglassday.bsky.social

On this date: January 2, 1854: Massachusetts State Council of Colored People in Boston. open.substack.com/pub/ther3pro... @ccp-org.bsky.social @jimccasey1.bsky.social @profgabrielle.bsky.social

Newsletter out today! - Ways to get involved - Organizing kit - New swag on "All Rights for All" - Schedule for Feb 13 and later events douglassday.substack.com/p/douglass-d... Help us spread the word?

Save the date! Douglass Day 2026 "All Rights for All" Fri, February 13 Sign up today! DouglassDay.org Feat. the Colored Conventions Project! @ccp-org.bsky.social @digblk.bsky.social

Join this #Harper200 read-a-thon if you can! -- Interested in hosting your own Harper read-a-thon? Learn more at: coloredconventions.org/read-harper-...

Happy 195th birthday to the Colored Conventions movement! The first convention debated whether this country would ever be a place for Black people to enjoy their full civil rights and citizenship. As those fights continue today, it is powerful reading omeka.coloredconventions.org/items/show/70

#tdih 1830 Forty African Americans, elected by communities in nine states, met in Philadelphia. They founded the National Colored Conventions movement. Read ⬇️, follow @ccp-org.bsky.social, and visit digital collection with essays here. 🧵 www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/fi...

Finally got around to getting THiCC lab principles (thicc-lab.org/principles/ ) and the Liberatory Tech Project principles up! (liberatorytech.org/principles/) Sites still a work in progress with more life needed. But we outchea, more comin

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper is 200 today! @c19americanists.bsky.social @digblk.bsky.social @ccp-org.bsky.social @blkgrlpoet.bsky.social @profgabrielle.bsky.social @npr.org She’s just as fabulous, relevant, and fiery now as she was in C19! For a sample, see commonplace.online/article/vol-...

I could not love this more. @errinhaines.bsky.social @ccp-org.bsky.social

Did you hear? Douglass Day 2026 is on the way! Friday, February 13, 2026 Sign up today: DouglassDay.org Oh, and this year we are featuring a massive *new* trove of rediscovered documents from our friends at the @ccp-org.bsky.social! 🎂

We're just one month away! Here is a sneak peek at the 5️⃣ featured panels. More information at: coloredconventions.org/harper-200-s... #Harper200 @ccp-org.bsky.social

“If you are talking about Philadelphia in this era & the work of women, you just have to mention Harper, you just have to.”—Dr. Sherita L. Johnson interview w/ the Philly @inquirer.com discussing Frances E. W. Harper's portrayal in “The Gilded Age." #Harper200 www.inquirer.com/entertainmen...

Coming to Eisenhower Auditorium at PSU on September 19! The Artistry and Activism of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper brings Harper’s legacy to life for a new generation—reclaiming history, honoring resilience, and celebrating artistic activism. TICKETS ON SALE NOW: cpa.psu.edu/events/franc...

#tdih 1967 National Conference on Black Power began in Newark in tradition of antebellum Black convention movement (@ccp-org.bsky.social) & early Pan-African congresses. More than 1,000 delegates representing 286 organizations and institutions from 126 cities in 26 states, Bermuda, and Nigeria.

SAVE THE DATE: We are excited to co-host #Harper200 Sept. 19-21. We invite you to attend in person! The weekend festivities include a dance performance, scholarly panels, poetry readings, receptions, and more. Most events are free. Learn more & register at: coloredconventions.org/harper-200-s...

In collaboration with the Africana Research Center, we are hosting this 3-day commemoration of Frances E. W. Harper: Looking Back, Moving Forward, Sept. 19-21. We hope to see you in person! #Harper200

Carla Hayden, the ex-Librarian of Congress who was fired by Trump, has a new role as senior fellow with the Mellon Foundation

When I offer workshops on crafting values-driven and strategic careers, I help academics create a “H€>l No/Sacred Yes Practice” based on questions like: “What energizes me? What enervates/depletes me?” Knowing that up front allows you to say NO to whole categories, and redirect people too.

On the Amicus podcast, we discussed Justice Brown Jackson’s dissent in Medina v. South Carolina, which cited the Colored Conventions to define “rights.” We were honored to host @ccp-org.bsky.social's P. Gabrielle Foreman at our March symposium on this history. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

Organized, robust, discussions of democracy were taking place as post Civil War amendments were added to the Constitution. We love hearing how Colored Conventions counter the majority’s take on originalism + its limits by @jamellebouie.net @dahlialithwick.bsky.social and @sifill.bsky.social

In 1852, Frederick Douglass asked: “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” Inspired by Douglass’ famous question, 20 people ensnared in the sprawling US criminal legal system answered this variation: “What, to the currently or formerly incarcerated American, is your Fourth of July?”

Euphemistic language is a tool often used to sanitize grave injustices. When referring to the WWII incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry, it is important to use the correct terminology: concentration camps, not relocation centers; forced removal, not evacuation; citizens, not non aliens.

IU has the oldest Folklore Department in the country--no longer a major. Cognitive Science? gone! PhD programs also sacrificed. Full list here: www.in.gov/che/files/In...

So, here it is. Thanks to a new state law that was NEVER DEBATED, Indiana University has committed itself to abolishing majors in African-American/African Diaspora Studies: American Studies; Art History; French; Italian; Religious Studies etc. DOZENS of majors. www.ipm.org/news-section...

"Something ineffable happens when you write down a thought: You think something you did not know you could or would think and it leads you to another thought… the process of writing itself leads to previously unthought thoughts [and] crystallizes half-formulated or unformulated thoughts" - Lynn Hunt

Second, Jackson is really good in how she thinks about and uses Reconstruction sources, and it is great to see these Black history sources being used for something other than gun rights claims. One can see a through line here from her SFFA dissent. 2/

I love that Justice Jackson is citing the Colored convention project! @ccp-org.bsky.social

Such an important part! Also, the book is great too. uncpress.org/book/9781469...

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson cites the Colored Conventions Project Digital Records. That's the ongoing digital humanities project that rediscovers relatively underrepresented political events in American history. @ccp-org.bsky.social

Those who organized Colored Conventions rallied for democracy and citizenship rights as state and national forces sought to deny them protections clearly outlined in the constitution. They were often forcefully dissenting voices. We will soon make public a new trove of Reconstruction conventions.

BREAKING: Justice Jackson cites the Colored Conventions Project Digital Archive her dissent in Medina v. Planned Parenthood. These public collective digital projects MATTER and they WILL be heard. 👏👏👏 @ccp-org.bsky.social @profgabrielle.bsky.social @jimccasey1.bsky.social

A few more words on this. First, the tremendous vision and work of MacArthur Fellow Gabrielle Foreman, her colleague Jim Casey, and the host of folks working with them @ccp-org.bsky.social has made possible the wide use of the invaluable Colored Conventions materials. 1/ coloredconventions.org

Peep my presentation on my with @ccp-org.bsky.social later today at #ACH2025 😇

Abslutely riveted by @profgabrielle.bsky.social's talk about the Colored Conventions Project – @ccp-org.bsky.social. #dgfa2025

Just getting started now with - "Digital Blackness: Collective Care, Community & Co-Creation Through the Colored Conventions Project, Douglass Day, and Carceral Algorithms" With Deja Workman, Eden Mekonen, and Denise Burgher! at the @ach.bsky.social virtual conference. Come through! #BlackDH

It's a @digblk.bsky.social x @scholarslab.bsky.social joint! Did the illegal closure of the NEH impact your work? Come share at the ACH conference next week. Then let's think together about what comes next.

The Kentucky Housing Corporation says the state stands to lose nearly half its funding for federal housing programs if Congress agrees to the Trump administration's proposed budget.

We’ve been planning this and waiting to announce for a minute! Excited to be officially joining the community as a co-director!

SOME NEWS! I am delighted to announce my next book! Working title: A Short Handbook for Public Scholars from @hopkinspress.bsky.social and @gmbritton.bsky.social. A pragmatic guide for scholars - construed broadly as anyone at all whose writing is informed by deep learning. Expected Summer 2026.

🔥NEWS🔥 #DigBlk is now swimming in the cross currents of humanities and new liberatory technologies, y’all!! Thank you, @profdancy.bsky.social, for joining the team at [email protected] as our new co-director!

@actualkatherine.bsky.social I haven’t been on here in a while but after seeing this I had to come back and let you know!

"This is not a Democratic Government if a numerous, law-abiding, industrious, and useful class of citizens, born and bred on the soil, are to be treated as aliens and enemies, as an inferior degraded class, (1/2)

"who must have no voice in the Government which they support, protect and defend, with all their heart, soul, mind and body, both in peace and war." (2/2) from "Petition of the Colored Citizens of Nashville," Jan. 9, 1865.

Our multi-institutional research teams have been busy! We have hundreds of additional convention documents on their way to the site! Watch this space!

Trying to document harms of NEH grant cancellations for MLA members. Get in touch with your story. [email protected]

The Maryemma Graham showcasing how her previous students—now institutional leaders themselves—helped build the long-standing History of Black Writing Project. We build on her vision and legacy. #Blackademics