Students in History 3313F “The Movement: Civil Rights and African American History in the 20th Century” are working on a community-based research partnership with the London Public Library to digitize early issues of London’s Dawn of Tomorrow . So far, the class has visited the Library’s Central Branch to scan microfilm copies of the paper, and has been to the Archives and Regional Collections Centre at Western to photograph paper copies. Working with Western PhD candidate Mary Beth Start, students have annotated issues published in the summer of 1923, and are pursuing further research on individual news items. Research results will be published on the class project website, and launched at a public event in the Spring.
The Dawn of Tomorrow CBL project is part of a SSRHC Insight Grant: “Canada’s 19th century black press: roots and trajectories of exceptional communication and intellectual activism”, led by Dr. Boulou Ebanda de b’Beri (P.I., University of Ottawa), Dr. Claudine Bonner (Acadia), and Dr. Nina Reid-Maroney (Huron).