Knox College is the recipient of a $10,700 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that will help fund an initiative to tell and preserve the history of Galesburg’s African-American heritage.
“Struggle and Progress: Documenting African-American History in Galesburg, Illinois” is the 18-month project that is already underway.
Knox found six issues of the Illinois Star, a black-owned and -edited newspaper published from mid 1930 through the early 1940s. Knox Manuscripts and Archives Curator Carley Robison says in a news release the publication “reveals the existence of a parallel community, with its own grocery stores, its own social gatherings, even its own elected representatives.”
The National Endowment for the Humanities grant will fund “digitization days” when people are invited to bring relevant documents — such as photos, news clippings and any sort of records — to be cataloged an scanned.
