“Unsettled Lawrence”: Challenging Collective Memory of Settlement Through the Oral and Public Histories of Unhoused Populations in Lawrence

We often tell the history of Lawrence, Kansas from the perspective of settlement in the “great American desert.” Even moments of dis-settlement, such as Quantrill’s Raid, are couched as victorious resettlement. Such a narrative elevates settling (often by white “homesteaders”) while stigmatizing other forms of occupancy as non-settlement.

American Indian Digital History Project

Founded in 2010, the American Indian Digital History Project works with Tribal archives, community members, organizations, and colleges to recover, preserve, and increase free & open searchable access to rare Indigenous newspapers, photographs, and archival materials throughout Native North America. It promotes accurate and responsible research and reporting that focuses on Indigenous nations, communities, and peoples.

Building Black Kansas City

Building Black Kansas City is an oral history project focusing on the African American experience in Kansas City, MO in the mid twentieth century, beginning at the end of World War II. These stories will chronicle the building of Black Kansas City through varying aspects of its culture, collecting and making accessible the voices of individuals who might not otherwise have an opportunity to share their personal stories from a bygone era.

History of Black Writing (HBW)

Since its establishment in 1983, the History of Black Writing (HBW) has committed to literary recovery work and public programming.

Las Colonias: The Housing of Poverty in Modern Americas

Scholarly and popular accounts of the U.S.-Mexico border, one of the world’s most contentious geopolitical divides, often depict nearby communities as caught between clashing nations. Yet, such framing obscures both countries’ far-reaching policy collaborations that have structured vast inequality as a condition of local life.

Preserving the History and Contributions of Interprofessional Practice and Education

IPE@KUMC/KU preserves the history and continuing contributions to interprofessional practice and education (IPE) by The University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) and The University of Kansas (KU) through a podcast series, oral histories, and archival documents to be preserved in collaboration with the Clendening History of Medicine Library and KUMC Archives. IPE is ultimately about social justice.

Voices of the Displaced

Gentrification, the calculated reclamation of black urban spaces for financially affluent new homeowners, is spreading through black communities across America. After years of economic oppression and deprivation, the black community now stands at the edge of perhaps the greatest community dispersal in its history.