Using Bryn Mawr College Special Collections as well as primary sources archived outside of the College, Emma and Grace began to analyze the ways in which Bryn Mawr College has chosen to record, remember, and represent racism in its history. Initial Black at Bryn Mawr research took places as part of a Spring 2015 Praxis III Independent Study course designed by Emma and Grace with the goal of developing a campus walking tour with a digital historical record. It explores the experiences of Black students, faculty, and staff at the College from its founding in 1885 to the present day. The purpose of Black at Bryn Mawr is to build institutional memory of the College’s engagement with race and racism, enabling future students to hold both themselves and the College community to higher standards of awareness and accountability to racial power dynamics inside and outside of the classroom. The project was born out of several community-wide conversations that occurred after two students hung a Confederate flag in their dormitory in September 2014, an incident which drew national media attention when more than 550 students, staff, and faculty gathered to protest the flag and demonstrate their commitment to changing Bryn Mawr’s legacy of unsafety for marginalized groups. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education) and Sharon Ullman (Chair, Department of History).
Black at Bryn Mawr is a collaborative project started by Bryn Mawr students Emma Kioko ’15 and Grace Pusey ’15 in the Fall of 2014 and aided by the guidance and support of Monica Mercado (CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow and Director, The Albert M.