Reflections on The Remember Me Project: Queen’s University’s Black Past and the AfroWomanist Sankofa Archive to Our Future

Abstract

How does one endeavour to recover history that has been intentionally hidden, erased, and forgotten? In what ways can the ethics of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) be applied within archival processes? In this article, I highlight the work I recently completed under the supervision of the Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Indigeneity (EDII) at Queen’s University as an “Afrofuturist” Graduate Research Fellow in a project titled The Remember Me Project: Black Historic Lives and Our Future(s) at Queen’s University. I focus on one poem from my collection titled, “Alfie or Did I Really Do Alright?” I problematize the now infamous figure of Alfred “Alfie” Pierce, a Black male employee of Queen’s Athletics department to problematize the ways Black stories are forgotten, lost, and devalued within academic institutions. In simultaneously speaking back to the politics of whose stories are worthy of remembrance at Queen’s, the horrors of “Alfie’s” story, and the difficulties involved in Black archival recovery, I introduce my intervention “the AfroWomanist Sankofa Archive” as an interdisciplinary framework constructed as a guideline for African-heritage peoples to utilize while navigating dis-empowering research material involving African archival information. I end with some recommendations for our Afrofuture.