The Need for the Humanization of Black Digital History

In previous weeks we have discussed the role that digital tools plays in the humanities and how it should be evaluated; what is the most appropriate way to evaluate these digital tools, should they be argumentative, are they accessible for all, are they inclusive, etc. One of the most important debates regarding digital tools is that of the digitization of Black history. Like many dated histories, digital history previously had a reputation for being borderline-racist. Kim Gallon writes that “discussions about the lineage of Black studies within the digital humanities are almost nonexistent.” (Gallon 2016). There is not enough humanity in the digital tools available on Black history, which was part of the issue that Gallon discusses. Gallon would go on to say that “any connection between humanity and the digital therefore requires an investigation into how computational processes might reinforce the notion of a humanity developed out of racializing systems, even as they foster efforts to assemble or otherwise build alternative human modalities” (Gallon, 2016). This recovery that she discusses would “restore the humanity of black people lost and stolen through systemic global racialization” (Gallon, 2016). There is a need to humanize the Blacks that have previously been seen as merely data.

On this same note, we previously discussed that the SlaveVoyages Database used to dehumanize Blacks by only representing them as numbers. Jessica Johnson would write that “the archive of Atlantic slavery—images, numbers, and texts created by slave owners, traders investors, abolitionists, and the enslaved themselves—haunts efforts to render black people as humans” (Johnson, 2018). Safiya Umoja Noble would also writes that “we can no longer deny that digital tools and projects are implicated in the rise in global inequality, because digital systems are reliant on global racialized labor exploitations” (Noble, 2019) Fortunately, they would make an effort to humanize them giving names, ages, skills, etc. to the slaves in the Transatlantic, as well as intra-American slave trade. This is an example of the restoration that Johnson calls for. Noble also writes that we need to “couple it [digital humanities] more closely with other critical traditions that foreground approaches influenced by political economy and intersectional race and gender studies” (Noble, 2019).

Lastly, let us look at an example of the humanization of Blacks and the hardships they have encountered in the United States. Scot French worked on the “Vinegar Hill: Preserving an African American Memoryscape.” In this interactive digital display, French and his fellow scholars were able to demonstrate “the displacement of the African American working and business classes; the destructive impact of urban renewal and gentrification on African American community life; and the erasure of African American history from Charlottesville’s commemorative landscape” (Chambliss & French, 2022). Instead of merely showing numbers, this demonstrates the devastation that African American communities have experienced in the U.S. French also worked on “The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War,” which “scrutinized competing claims to cultural authority while ruminating on the more fluid, speculative dimensions of history and memory,” because of its focus on the Jefferson-Hemings scandal (Chambliss & French, 2022).

Moving forward, historians should move away from looking merely at the numbers of African Americans, to giving life to/humanizing African Americans. Instead of looking at the data of the number of slaves or something of the sort, demonstrate how their lives were specifically affected, the geography around them, the way in which a certain event caused or had an effect on the diaspora of African American culture, etc. The slave trade is anything but under-discussed. There is no denying the importance of the topic; but the focus of the humanization of African Americans should be more of a focus.