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Exploring the Black Women’s Organizing Archive (BWOA): A Digital Project Informed by the Community Imperatives of Black Women’s Organizing
April 29, 2025 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time
In 2020, archivists, educators, and students across the U.S. and Canada gathered remotely to transcribe a newly digitized collection of papers of Anna Julia Cooper—a visionary Black leader, writer, civil rights activist, and educator. This event, which was formed out of a collaboration between Douglass Day, and the existing partnership between the Anna Julia Cooper Digital Project and the Moorland-Springarn Research Center at Howard University, precipitated the launch of the Black Women’s Organizing Archive (BWOA).
Through digitization and transcription projects, community collectives, scholarly resource building, and pedagogical, critical and creative initiatives, BWOA aims to move Black women unapologetically to the forefront of late nineteenth century social movements and organizing efforts. The project’s commitment to such engaging activities is intentional: “Informed by the ethical practices and community imperatives of the early pioneers of Black women’s organizing, BWOA reimagines Black women’s archives as spaces for community engagement, participatory storytelling, and transformative public history.” Today, these principles shape their work in recovering and discussing the scattered texts of Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Mary Church Terrell, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.
On Tuesday, April 29 at 12:00 PM EDT, Shirley Moody-Turner (Penn State University), Sabrina Evans (Howard University), and Takina Walker (Penn State University) will discuss the origins, values, and partnerships that have shaped the Black Women’s Organizing Archive. They will also present the resources available on the site for researchers and educators looking to engage with these materials. This presentation may be of interest to those seeking to create a digital project, archive or edition that is community centered.
About the Presenters
Dr. Shirley Moody-Turner is associate professor and award-winning teacher of English and African American Studies at Penn State University. She is the founding director of the Black Women’s Organizing Archive (BWOA), a digital project which seeks to bring together the scattered archives of nineteenth- and early-twentieth century Black women’s organizing. She is also the founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Digital Project, a cross-institutional partnership that worked with the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center on the digitization of the Anna Julia Cooper Papers and with Douglass Day 2020 to produce a community-based, crowd-sourced transcription of the collection. She is author and editor of several published and forthcoming books including the Penguin Portable Anna Julia Cooper and an interpretive biography on the educational vision and activism of Anna Julia Cooper.
Dr. Sabrina Evans is an assistant professor of English at Howard University and a JT Mellon Satellite Partner with the Center for Black Digital Research at Penn State University. She is co-project coordinator for the Black Women’s Organizing Archive, a digital project which seeks to bring together the scattered archives of nineteenth- and early-twentieth century Black women’s organizing. She was also the project coordinator for Douglass Day 2020: Transcribe Cooper and was an inaugural DigBlk scholar at the Center for Black Digital Research. Her current work focuses on the “constant agitation” of nineteenth- and early-twentieth century Black women within their intellectual-activist work, with a primary focus on Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Church Terrell, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.
Takina Walker is a dual-title PhD student in English and African American and Diaspora Studies at Penn State University. As both a scholar and creative writer, her work centers on Black women’s literature with a special focus on 20th-century African American romance. She explores how race, gender, and sexuality intersect in romantic narratives, drawing connections within the Black literary imagination and its transformative possibilities.
