UNC Greensboro University Libraries, along with faculty partners across the state, has received an $150,000 digital extension grant from The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) to expand its Digital Library on American Slavery (DLAS) to three more campuses in North Carolina: North Carolina Central University, UNC Pembroke, and East Carolina University.
As part of the 2021 ACLS Digital Extension Grant program, the grant will allow the University Libraries team, led by Richard Cox and Dr. Claire E. Heckel, to expand the digital infrastructure of the DLAS through local, community-engaged digital humanities research and engage new audiences. Principal investigators Dr. Charles Denton Johnson, NCCU; Dr. Jarvis L. Hargrove, ECU; and Dr. Jaime Amanda Martinez, UNCP will lead a distinct research project that builds on their own scholarship and existing programs of study at their respective institutions and on existing relationships with local communities.
“It’s always been important to me that the Digital Library on American Slavery be a resource that is demonstrably beneficial and openly available to both researchers beyond UNCG and the broader community,” said Cox. “This grant, led by Dr. Johnson, Dr. Martinez, and Dr. Hargrove, will allow DLAS itself to grow as well as provide funding for their important work at their institutions and in their local North Carolina communities.”
DLAS is an expanding resource compiling various independent online collections focused on race and slavery in the American South, made searchable through a single, simple interface. It houses one of the largest databases of slave names on the internet, and has been used by historians, genealogists, and other scholars and researchers across the world, including Colson Whitehead, author of the Pulitzer-winning novel “The Underground Railroad.”
To learn more and to view the digital library, visit library.uncg.edu/slavery.
