What Is Solidarity History?

KJ Rawson is the founder and director of the Digital Transgender Archive. Rae Garringer talks to KJ about the DTA, the need for information structures in an era of book bans, and turn-of-the-century West Virginia gender-bending outlaws.

Ashby Combahee is the founding organizer of the Southern Memory Workers Institute at Highlander Research Center, which brings to gather archivists, oral historians, documentarians, and folks doing similar work to dream big about better worlds.

Dartricia Rollins is co-founder and oral historian with Georgia Dusk: A Southern Liberation Oral History. We talk about the need for more movement archivists, and all sorts of other great things. Here are links to topics we cover:

Georgia Dusk: https://www.georgiadusk.com/

Auburn Avenue Research Center: https://www.fulcolibrary.org/auburn-avenue-research-library/

Charis Books and More: https://www.charisbooksandmore.com/

Charis Circle: https://www.chariscircle.org/

For Keeps Books: https://www.forkeepsbooks.com/

SisterSong: https://www.sistersong.net/

In this episode we talk to Michelle Caswell, professor of Archival Studies in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Director of UCLA’s Community Archive Lab (https://communityarchiveslab.ucla.edu/).

Michelle is also the co-founder of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA, https://www.saada.org/), and author of Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work (Routledge Press, 2021), which is available open access here.

In this episode we talk to Anita Varma, assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Media at The University of Texas at Austin and Lead of the Solidarity Journalism Initiative (yes, we did take our name from her project; yes we did tell her).

We talk about what solidarity looks like in journalism and what a world that didn’t need this initiative would be like.

This week we're hearing from Victoria Ferrell Ortiz.

Victoria uses she  her pronouns and is a neighborhood historian and urban planner in Dallas, Texas.

We talk about historically-grounded solidarity rendered actionable through urban planning.

In this episode we hear from Jasmine Sudarkasa, Executive Director of Curve Foundations.

Jasmine uses she her pronouns and is doing an amazing amount of work to shepherd in a new era for Curve. An era of expanded inclusion and representation, an era that challenges us all to consider the future of queer and trans storytelling. We'll start here with Jasmine talking about the documentary, the history of curve and how this drew her to the work.

In this episode we talk to Rae Garringer. Rae uses they/them pronouns and is the founder of Country Queers, a multimedia oral history project that uplifts often unheard stories of country and small town queer experiences across intersecting layers of identity including race, class, gender, age, religion, and occupation.

We talk about the storytelling through oral history and journalism, and the role of care in different situations. We also discuss the role of solidarity as caring for people from the pas that we'll never meet.

Learn more about Country Queers here: https://www.countryqueers.com/

Original music written, performed and donated by Andrew Quo. You can learn more about Andrew here: http://deadtapes.co/

In this episode we talk with Nathalie Nia Foulk, oral historian, performance artist, culture keeper.

Nathalie Nia uses they or she pronouns and is a self described Ebony Southern Belle. Her work blends performance, history, healing justice, cultural organizing, and leadership development in service of all people, but particularly for trans and queer communities.

Learn more about Last Call here: http://www.lastcallnola.org/

Original music supplied by Andrew Kuo. Learn more here: http://deadtapes.co/