SIUE Series with Smithsonian’s Smith Center Wraps with “Re-discovering & Preserving Local Black History”

SIUE Series with Smithsonian's Smith Center Wraps with "Re-discovering & Preserving Local Black History"

September 30, 2024, 1:50 PM

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's month-long series of community curation wraps with a special presentation from award-winning Illinois historian Charlotte E. Johnson. Mrs. Johnson has spent more than 50 years collecting, researching, and documenting local history, which has resulted in numerous family revelations, museum holdings and exhibits, presentations and listings on both National Park Service's National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom and the National Register of Historic Places. Johnson and her daughter, author Reneé B. Johnson, will share some of her findings and techniques in the workshop "Re-discovering & Preserving Local Black History," on Thursday, Oct. 3 at 4 p.m. in Lovejoy Library.

Charlotte Johnson received the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Illinois State Historical Society (ISHS), which recognizes individuals for sustained and varied contributions to state and local history. During the workshop, she will discuss the importance of oral history, written stories, legal records, and the overall process of preserving the Johnson family history and local Black history. Reneé B. Johnson, author of "Alton ABC," will moderate the discussion. The workshop will serve as a professional development opportunity for students and an opportunity for the public to meet the mother and daughter historians.

This workshop concludes SIUE's month-long collaboration with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) Community Curation 2024 program in partnership with the Center for the Digitization and Curation of African American History, also known as The Smith Center, funded by Robert F. Smith.

"It's a great opportunity to host the Johnsons. Charlotte Johnson has a wealth of knowledge, and her work should be recognized by all of us who consider ourselves GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) professionals. It's also commendable that her daughter Reneé is engaging in this work with her mother. What the Johnson family is doing is valuable in helping to not only preserve the stories of Black people who are often overlooked in larger historical narratives, but they are also reconnecting us to forgotten communities." said Simone Williams, assistant professor in Library and Information Services and Diversity & Engagement Librarian.

Also presenting is Marcella Lees, MSLIS, Lovejoy Library's digital archivist and visiting assistant professor, who was instrumental in digitizing Abstracts of Title from 1922 and 1932 documenting the Johnson family history as landowners in Foster Township prior to the Emancipation Proclamation.

Charlotte Johnson, who grew up in Springfield, is the daughter of Alonzo Homer Kenniebrew, MD, the first African American physician in the United States to build and operate a surgical hospital, the New Home Sanitarium in Jacksonville, established in 1909. SIU School of Medicine hosts the annual Alonzo Homer Kenniebrew, MD Forum, Lecture and Conference on Health Inequities and Disparities to commemorate the life of a ground-breaking central Illinois physician.

In 2024, the conference was renamed the Kenniebrew-McNeese Health Equity Conference, to honor the forum's founder, SIU physician and trailblazer Dr. Wesley McNeese.

PHOTO: Charlotte E. Johnson