Committees
The Colored Conventions Project values the insight and instrumentality of diverse, interdisciplinary working groups that include team members across rank and background. Interdependent committees work towards long-term goals while completing initiatives in small group settings.
The organizational structure ebbs and flows across educational status, and in and out of academic, institutional, and regional communities to cull together the scattered records of the Colored Conventions movement. This cross-communal collaboration is intentional and necessary, reflecting the values of our work, and the history of organizing upon which we build.
Each semester working committees shift and adjust according to project needs and development. Below are standing committees.
This graphic represents the horizontal organizational structure of CCP. Scholars, faculty, librarians, and professionals (orange ring) comprise the committees (yellow rings) as well as comprise the Strategic Planning and Executive teams. Committees collaborate with external institutions and communities (purple rings). The work done under a Mellon grant (blue rings) is similar, yet rotates on a distinct orbit.
Communications
This committee oversees online outreach to share news about CCP initiatives, progress and the Colored Conventions movement. Members create, prepare and disseminate content using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Community and Historic Church Outreach
This committee forms organizational partnerships to encourage a variety of communities to learn more about the Colored Conventions movement and to get involved in project initiatives in meaningful ways. Travel to and outreach at a number of sites of historical and intellectual significance are core aspects of members’ roles.
Convention Database
This committee plans and implements initiatives surrounding a developing, community-sourced Conventions Database of information pertaining to the historic Colored Conventions movement. From concept to spreadsheet, members create, clean and compile datasets.
Curriculum – NEW!
New for Fall 2019, the Curriculum committee will design and develop a unit based on CCP-provided course content for a select learner group between grades 7 and 12.
Digital Archives
This committee locates and catalogs convention proceedings and related documents such as convention calls and petitions. Often working closely with librarians, members use library science tools and methodologies to ensure that convention-related documents are uploaded to the repository UDSpace and to content management systems such as Omeka and WordPress, which serve as platforms for ColoredConventions.org.
Exhibits
This committee oversees the process and design of interactive exhibits that are featured at ColoredConventions.org/exhibits. Members work with National Teaching Partners and community and student contributors to publish original research and writing, media and historical documents that bring to life convention-related ideas, people, places and literature.
Grants
This committee identifies and applies for grant funding. Members fulfill a variety of roles related to strategic planning, grant writing, environmental scans, budgets and work with the UD development office and the UD College of Arts & Sciences and connected departments.
Transcribe Minutes
This committee creates fully searchable editions of convention minutes and related documents that are available at ColoredConventions.org/transcribe-minutes. Members prepare and oversee community-sourced corrections of machine-generated transcriptions so they match the actual text from the PDF images of convention minutes.
Website
This committee manages the WordPress site for the project. Members prepare pages, update information relative to the activities of Colored Conventions members, and maintain site’s connections to the Convention database and external sites.
The Colored Conventions Project, Douglass Day and the Black Women's Organizing Archive
are flagship projects of the Center for Black Digital Research, #DigBlk, at Penn State University.
The Colored Conventions Project appreciates the support of:
The Colored Conventions Project was launched & cultivated at the University of Delaware from 2012-2020.