Archiving Protests, Protecting Activists
On Friday, June 19th, Documenting the Now hosted a live streamed conversation with WITNESS, The Blackivists, Texas After Violence Project, and Project STAND. We are so thankful to the 800+ attendees and to our amazing panelists: Tracy Drake, Raquel Flores-Clemons, Erin Glasco, Stacie Williams, Skyla Hearn, Steven Booth, Gabriel Solis, Yvonne Ng, Lae’l Hughes-Watkins, and Jessica Ballard. Also much thanks to the Documenting the Now team members who helped put the event together: Alexandra Dolan-Mescal (who also designed the social media graphic), Francis Kayiwa, and Ed Summers.
Below is a recording of the conversation or you can hop on over to YouTube.
This is the original event description:
The recent wave of protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, have been inspiring and have renewed calls to dismantle the racist systems that inflict so much harm on Black people and other marginalized people. While the protests seemed to have ignited a shift in public opinion towards finally doing what is right, the violent reaction from law enforcement to the protesters has been disturbing and yet an unsurprising aspect of the recent events. As archivists, activists, and other memory workers attempt to document these protests, it is vital to consider how protestors can be protected from further harm by police while they are taking part in actions or when information about them is found in archives at a later date. In this conversation, Documenting the Now, WITNESS, Texas After Violence Project, Blackivists, and Project STAND will discuss actions that protestors and memory workers can take and resources they can use to safely and ethically document the extreme police violence we are seeing towards protestors.
These are some of the resources that were share by our panelists during the conversation:
Documenting the Now
- DocNow Digital Blackness Symposium: Panel- The Ferguson Effect on Local Activism and Community Memory
- Documenting the Now White Paper on Ethics and Social Media Archiving
- Archivists Supporting Activists
- Join DocNow Slack
- Documenting Activism Now
The Blackivists
- Five Tips for Organizers, Protestors, and Anyone Documenting Movements
- The Blackivists on Documenting Movements
Texas After Violence Project
- Documenting Narratives of Violence: Mitigating Risks
- Documenting Narratives of Violence: Trauma-Informed Interviewing
WITNESS
- Filming Police Violence in the United States resources
- People’s Database for Community-Based Police Accountability: A Berkeley Copwatch / WITNESS Initiative
- Profiling the Police (El Grito de Sunset Park & WITNESS)
- How To Film Police (US)
- I Shot A Video Of Police Brutality During A Protest. Should I Post It Online?
- Eyes on ICE: Documenting Abuses Against Immigrant Communities resources
- Real Or Rumor: How To Verify Online Reports Of ICE Raids
- Legal Video Advocacy resources
- Plano De Coleta — Operações Policiais E Militares Em Favelas Ou Áreas Periféricas (Portuguese)
- Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video
- Video as Evidence Field Guide
Project STAND
