From: Rhue, Monika [mailto:mrhue@jcsu.edu] Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2020 2:34 PM Subject: Rhue-JCSU Library Awarded 2 Grants The Institute of Museum and Library Services Museum Grants for African American History and Culture awards JCSU Library RCLM 37 Project The James B. Duke Memorial Library at Johnson C. Smith University is awarded a $50,000 grant from Institute of Museum and Library Services Museum Grants for African American History and Culture. The grant will support a public art program, RCLM 37 that will use art, sound, and visuals to chronicle the past and present day narratives of historic African American spaces in Biddleville and the Beatties Ford Road Corridor in Charlotte, North Carolina-home to JSCU. The RCLM 37 project team will create four interactive, outdoor mobile "pop-up units" incorporating original soundtracks using oral histories to capture the past and present sounds of Biddleville by infusing gospel, jazz, hip-hop, and other pieces to appeal to a multi-generational audience. The RCLM 37 project activities will also include tours and a discussion series to share the history of Biddleville and to generate dialogues about urban renewal. Materials collected for this project will become part of the JCSU Digital Smith Archives<https://digitalsmith.jcsu.edu/>. Monika Rhue, Director of Library Services and Curation is the Project Director. Janelle Dunlap will serve as the Creative Director. Ms. Dunlap is a social practice artist, curator and consultant who works to generate intentional and transformational change through her practice. Mrs. Rhue hopes upon completion of the RCLM 37 project that it will serve as a replicable model for other communities impacted by urban renewal and gentrification. National Park Service and Historic Preservation Fund: Civil Rights Grant Program Funds JCSU A Virtual Sense of Place: Critical Black Urbanism project The James B. Duke Memorial Library at Johnson C. Smith University also is awarded a $35,000 grant from the National Park Service and Historic Preservation Fund: Civil Rights Grant Program. The grant will support A Virtual Sense of Place: Critical Black Urbanism, to document alteration in housing and land use for African Americans beginning with the period of the modern Civil Rights Movement in Charlotte, North Carolina. The project activities include digitizing maps and manuscript holdings regarding traditional African American Villages in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The focus is on neighborhoods that existed before the first wave of gentrification by the City of Charlotte in 1959-1970, and which are housed under the title "The Brooklyn Collection" at the Inez Moore Parker Archives at Johnson C. Smith University. The project's objective is to share documents relating to the Brooklyn, Irvin Park, Greenville, Biddleville, and other African American neighborhoods that existed before the first wave of gentrification by the City of Charlotte in 1959-1970. In Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, N.C., as elsewhere, the federal government funded local urban renewal plans to gather land settled by African Americans, using eminent domain enforcements and city code violations to eject whole African American communities, and to place those families in public housing. This phenomena marks the continual struggle in American politics over interpretations of Civil Rights, between ethnic groups, within cities, and between citizens and their national government. Grant funding will allow for preparation of maps, photos, and correspondence about renewal and relocation. This is part one of a longer-term virtual project in which altered or destroyed African American neighborhoods are recreated in an augmented reality application and experiential exhibits with immersive elements. Project staff: PI: Historian Dr. Tekla Ali Johnson, Co-PI: Library Director Monika Rhue, Co-PI: JCSU Archivist Mr. Brandon Lunsford. Both projects support Johnson C. Smith University library and archives mission in preserving and sharing the history of African Americans. Visit us at https://library.jcsu.edu James B. Duke Memorial Library<https://library.jcsu.edu/> The library opens at 7:30am Monday-Friday to support JCSU's students, faculty, and staff. Community users can access the library starting at 9:00am. Services are limited for community users. library.jcsu.edu Monika Rhue (Nooma) Leading Change Institute 2019 Class HBCU Library Alliance Board Chair Director of Library Services and Curation James B. Duke Memorial Library www.library.jcsu.edu<http://www.library.jcsu.edu/> Johnson C. Smith University mrhue@jcsu.edu<mailto:mrhue@jcsu.edu> 704-371-6730 [1493318716235_library] ************************************************ Recruitment. Resources. Retention. Rigor. ********************************************