Methodologies & Principles of Care

Methodologies:

 The EBBDA is deeply invested in community-engaged learning, digital accessibility, multimodality, and collaboration. Our research also builds upon the critical and pedagogical practices of Black feminist scholars such as bell hooks, Toni Morrison, and Jessica Marie Johnson. We hope that you will join us in honoring the voices and lives being foregrounded, and acknowledging the labor, histories, and conditions that made this work possible. In addition:

1. We recognize the humanity of Black enslaved and freed individuals and refrain from seeing them only as data points;
2. We are intentional about the language used when discussing  enslaved people (we are guided by Gabrielle P. Foreman’s article “Writing about Slavery/Teaching About Slavery);
3. We highlight and center Black lives as well as Black communities, Black intellectual production,  Black scholarship, and Black collections;
4. We acknowledge that the site and its materials were created by the labor of the undergraduate and graduate students at Northeastern University, Boston Public School Students, and Boston Public School Partners.

Principles of Care:

We recognize that engaging with some of this material may be emotionally and intellectually challenging. We encourage you to pause as needed and to take breaks when looking at materials that might feel challenging. Caring for yourself is part of what it means to thoughtfully engage with this material.