Overview: The Trump administration has issued 152 executive orders to dismantle federal programs, policies, and laws, including diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture has removed some artifacts, while the National Parks Service has removed references to Harriet Tubman and the Fugitive Slave Act. To combat the erasure of Black history, Archiving the Black Web (ATBW) is working to preserve Black experiences online through web archiving training, with a focus on preserving Black content on the internet.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Breanna Reeves
Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has issued 152 executive orders, each chipping away at different federal programs, policies and laws that claim to “restore” America.
As the Trump administration attributes dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as an act of restoration, others attribute it to a mass erasure — erasure of African American historical artifacts, erasure of Black contributions to this country, erasure of Black innovation.
In March, Trump signed an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which accuses museums such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), a Smithsonian Institution, for spreading “improper partisan ideology.”
As the order took effect, reports of artifacts being removed and returned to their owners by the museum surfaced, as well as the removal of the historic Greensboro, North Carolina lunch counter and a stool.
A statement released in response by the Smithsonian stated that these procedures are routine, and confirmed that the historic Greensboro stool and counter are still on display.
“Further, the Smithsonian routinely returns loaned artifacts per applicable loan agreements and rotates objects on display in accordance with the Smithsonian’s high standards of care and preservation and as part of our regular museum turnover,” according to the statement. “Recent claims that objects have been removed for reasons other than adherence to standard loan agreements or museum practices are false.”
The executive order also extends beyond physical museums as the National Parks Service removed Harriet Tubman’s image and a quote from its website that is dedicated to the Underground Railroad. References to “enslaved” people and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 were also removed.
While the webpage was eventually restored after public outcry, and some of these artifacts still remain on display, it’s unclear for how long and raises larger concerns about what happens when physical artifacts disappear and how Black history can be kept alive and chronicled outside of museums.
According to the team at Archiving the Black Web (ATBW), one answer is web archiving.
Founded in 2019, by Dr. Bergis Jules and Makiba Foster, ATBW aims to establish a more equitable and accessible web archiving practice in the U.S. to better document the Black experience online. A project from the Shift Collective, ATBW is funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Mellon Foundation.
“In a lot of ways, when you think about the Smithsonian, what’s it mean that the federal government is a steward of marginalized people’s histories? We have to start really looking at that question because when there is an administration in power that’s on your side, and cares about the existence of Black people, then we’re good and things stay up,” Dr. Jules explained.
“But then we see how, when one comes in that is not on your side, how easily information could be lost, and how dangerous that could be and devastating because it’s like we’re not prepared for that possibility. We don’t think about the possibility that the federal government could say, ‘You know what, we don’t want to be collecting histories about Black people anymore.’”
As attempts to physically and digitally erase Black history offline and online move forward, ATBW is working to combat those attempts online by providing web archiving training to a wide range of memory workers. Black memory work, specifically, describes the many ways that Black communities engage with their history and culture, which involves archival practices, community organizing, cultural preservation and ethical considerations.
In April, ATBW announced 22 fellows who will participate in the WARC School, a yearlong training program that sets out to “create a new generation of web archiving practitioners dedicated to documenting the Black experience online.”
“If we are to sort of challenge those narratives around who gets included in archives and counter some of the things in the way in which we’ve negotiated archives in the past, which has been rich, moneyed, white people,” Foster explained.
“There’s an opportunity in which we seek out content from the digital space that really allows us to preserve some of the everyday lives of people, and that, particularly, in our instance, looking at Blackness in the digital space and how we preserve that through the practice of web archiving.”
Throughout the course of the year, fellows in the WARC School will complete five courses, beginning with a Black history of the web, then onto an introduction into web archiving, learning about web archiving tools, and finally, building and managing web archives. The final program requirement is a practicum that allows fellows to develop and implement an independent web archiving initiative.
Both Foster and Dr. Jules stressed the importance of the ATBW fellowship being a grassroots, community effort that equips those in the community with the opportunity and skills to take on web archiving in a way that is community-centered and preserves Black existence.
With the frequent use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that store online data, the team at ATBW urges the Black community to think critically about how their data is used online, and how they can be intentional with their online presence.
“I do think projects like ours, Archiving the Black Web, is a sort of intervention. But if you don’t know, if you don’t have the education around the possibilities, there is an assumption that everything is being archived and AI is friendly in a way — which it is not,” Foster warned.
In the last year, the dangers of AI have become more apparent as evidenced in an AI-generated image of Trump surrounded by Black supporters that was spread online during the 2024 presidential campaign season. Created by a Trump supporter and radio host, the creator didn’t see an issue with sharing the fake image, according to an interview published by BBC.
With the amount of content disseminated and shared online, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to discern between what’s authentic and what’s AI-generated. Additionally, with changes to social media platforms like X’s privacy settings, users aren’t always in control of what they share or how their data is used.
Last October, under Elon Musk’s ownership, X changed their terms of service, informing users that “by submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to make your Content available to the rest of the world.”
“The people who build the websites that all of us use for whatever, they’re not really thinking about archiving. They’re not really thinking about preserving these things. They’re either in it for business purposes, economic purposes, to have access to our data — they don’t really care about why we would want to save things for ourselves or for our community,” Dr. Jules said.
For these reasons, ATBW is working “to give tools and knowledge and skills to folks who are constantly online and who are constantly sharing information, sharing culture, like building community online. We’re giving them these skills so that they can try to preserve their own content,” Dr. Jules continued.
During an April conference, ATBW brought together community leaders, Black memory workers, scholars and other stakeholders to host discussions about the history of the Black web, the development of Black social media platforms and what safety looks like online for Black people.
Alex Reed, project manager for Mapping Black California, Black Voice News’ data journalism unit, joined the conference as a researcher who routinely works to source, gather and quantify Black existence across different sectors.
Reed shared that while attending the conference, she began to understand the ways that data can be extracted from memories and digital archives, but also learned the ways that data can be used to enhance the importance of them.
“When you give people the language that people in power are using — they’re using math, using numbers and data to determine who gets what money, who gets access to what new technologies,” Reed said. “When you level that playing field and get them access to that language, then [people] can turn around and say, ‘We are the ones who need those resources, and not just need, we demand them.’”
With the WARC School training the next generation of Black memory workers on web archiving, ATWB is one step closer to leveling the playing field.