"Who Deserves To Be Remembered?" Biography as Cultural History
That question was posed by Tafari Robertson, curator of the “Black Historians’ Department: The Past Belongs to You,” an exhibition staged last summer at The Library Company of Philadelphia. The opening reception provided the incentive to visit this local research library and archive whose staff members acknowledged that this was one of the most well-attended events they’d staged in several years. The exhibition brought more African Americans to the venue at one time than any other event; the space was packed with an intergenerational mix of genealogists, students, collectors, and “speculative historians” – a term Robertson used to underscore the “imaginative possibilities” available to those of us who seek to revitalize the legacies of “those ignored or diminished” in current academic agendas.
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