blog post by CFPRT Scholar Mary Senyonga

Mary Senyonga, Department of Education
Centennial Wiki Scholar

Mary Senyonga is a doctoral candidate in the Social Sciences and Comparative Education division with a specialization in Race and Ethnic Studies within the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Her dissertation investigates how Black women and femmes both resist and heal as they attend what she calls Traditionally Oppressive Institutions. Her work employs Black feminism, Critical Race Theory, and Queer of Color Critique to surface liberatory possibilities in the face of marginalization.

Naming and Honoring the Black Women Hidden in the Archives

Although there are immense stores of information within archives, they are fraught spaces for the marginalized and, in this instance, for Black women. Information has been collated that relays the historical and contemporary truth of constructed differential terror. From the actual content of archival materials to the methods of collecting, these spaces still have a ways toc t  go in disrupting the normalcy of majoritarian perspectives. However, there are glimpses and visages of rebellious and resilient acts amongst Black women. Narratives surrounding notable figures are easily referenced. However, my time working as the Centennial Wiki Scholar has illuminated stories that I had not been privy to despite my interest in Black feminism and social justice more generally. In this blog post, I want to celebrate the Black women who have provided examples of how to resist oppression, made space to celebrate Blackness, and lived full lives that sometimes get eclipsed by more well-known counterparts.

These less explored narratives provide necessary space to consider what it could mean to look for --- what Black feminist scholar Saidiya Hartman has described as --- the minor character in a landscape of narrativizing struggles against and alternatives to oppression. Approaching the archives with an open mind and not a particular research goal allowed me to come across people and moments that add to the expansive landscape of necessary resistance. Further, updating and creating Wikipedia articles with information from the archives illuminates how much more accessible we can make archival materials to the general public. This role as the Centennial Wiki Scholar brought to light how scholars, researchers, and archivists can think of our work as part of a larger effort to serve the public rather than keep information within institutions.

As the Centennial Wiki Scholar, I have been tasked with updating and creating Wikipedia articles using archival materials from Library Special Collections. I started this work during the Winter quarter and focused my efforts on investigating UCLA’s relationship to and its impact on Los Angeles. Looking through the history of the University took me through well-known moments in the University’s history and offered more detail to these well-documented stories. I first explored Angela Davis’s dismissal from the campus as a professor of philosophy due to her membership in the Communist Party. In 1969, affiliation with the Communist Party still proved to be a contentious matter. A 1949 policy initiated by the University of California that forbade the hiring of a known Communist was used as the grounds upon which Davis was swiftly dismissed before even teaching her first lecture at the Los Angeles campus.

Support for Davis came in multiple forms: from legal opposition to the dismissal to student organizing demanding that the Board of Regents reverse the decision. The archives are full of materials from this critical time that document the varied support that she received. Amongst the on-campus student support, there are lists of demands, calls to action, and event flyers from the Black Student Union that profile the intentional organizing that Black students engaged in to protest against the Regents’ decision. From naming the inherent racial and gendered influence of the dismissal to highlighting the lack of Black professors on campus, Black students reckoned with the condition of white supremacy on campus. Through these documents, I came across Sonja Walker who served as the chairperson of Cultural Affairs for the Black Student Union. During her senior year, she was the First Vice President of the undergraduate student body. Walker majored in History, and through the archives, it is clear that she dedicated her time to organizing against the Regents’ decision as well as for the overall well-being of Black students. Her organizing efforts included circulating calls to action, writing articles for Nommo (a Black student newspaper), as well as writing poetry that centered on blackness. Walker’s poetry especially struck me when exploring her activism. Political engagement at this time also recognized the importance of the arts as a medium to convey radical viewpoints, voice refutations to domination, and provide affirmations for marginalized people. In a context where the fight against oppression seemed daunting, Walker not only committed herself to organize others against oppression and naming the condition of oppression but also provided thoughtful poetry that attended to the realities of marginalization. I found two poems by her, both published in the peer-reviewed journal Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies. Walker’s poems, In My Version: A Different View (p. 1970) and Black Eyes (p. 1971) both beautifully explore antiblackness, resistance, and hope; with In My Version focusing on Angela Davis and Black Eyes focusing on Black collective resistance to create a new world.

Walker uses her poem In My Version to honor Davis’s commitment to justice and working among oppressed peoples. Walker doesn’t engage with Davis as a symbol of radical justice but attends to her as a person. She writes of Davis’s lectures and speeches, that at times can be complex and difficult to grasp, as becoming more tangible as Davis provides examples that relate to everyday life. Walker highlights Davis’s disregard of celebrity in the face of the national fight with The Regents and observes how the fight is not just about Davis but is one that reveals the systemic nature of power and attempts by those to maintain that power. Walker writes,

When one talks of intellectual honesty
As it relates to real academic freedom
One instinctively thinks of her
Remembers hearing her say without hesitation
I am a member of the Che-Lumumba Club
Which is an all-black collective
Of the Communist Party

Throughout the poem, Walker relays the importance of Davis’s presence as a politically radical Black person who is in opposition to the limits of the University. She names how Davis moves across academic barriers to focus her efforts on engaging in critical thought with oppressed peoples and through this poem provides a lyrical admiration for Davis during this time.

In Black Eyes, Walker shifts her focus to the collective as she uses the phrase “black eyes” to signify seeing the conditions of racism and the ability to envision a different reality. Walker honors the anger and pain that comes from experiencing and witnessing racial harm and writes,

It is through black eyes
That I know where you are coming from
It is through black eyes
That I feel you are concerned
It is through black eyes
That I see your eyes are filled with anger

She affirms the multitude of emotions that Black people feel due to the daily and normalized racial hierarchy that subordinates Black people. She further writes about the resistance and hopeful visioning that Black people engage in despite the weight of oppression. Walker writes,

Black eyes that now realize
That new vision is necessary
Eyes that will see to it that justice is done
Eyes that defy the contradictions of human suffering in
            a world of wealth
Attempting to change these things

This future visioning that Walker takes us through asserts the power of Black resistance to domination. Starting first with calling in the pain that is felt from everyday antiblackness to ending the poem with a call to envisioning a world otherwise, Walker artfully portrays the multifaceted experience of marginalization. She names the pain and maps out a possible salve to that pain. I tried looking for more of Walker. I was interested in finding out more about her organizing and articulations of dominance and resistance. While I wasn’t able to find out more about her during this time, I know that her story continues. I know that there are other Black women like her that the archive may obscure because they aren’t searchable by name. Though their names are not yet known, I know their stories are rich.

Much like my encounter with Sonja Walker through Angela Davis, I came upon Ruth Bunche by happenstance. Her husband Ralph Bunche is well known for his diplomatic career and most notably as the first Black person to be honored with a Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. His accolades both while living and posthumously are numerous. Though he was frequently photographed at events alongside his wife, Ruth, I had seen little mention of her own work towards justice. I was looking through archival material related to Black women artists in Los Angeles when I happened upon a short mention of Ruth Bunche in materials regarding the League of Allied Arts. The League of Allied Arts is one of the oldest Black women’s non-profit art organizations in Los Angeles. Founded by Dorothy Vena Johnson and Juanita Miller in 1939, the organization aims to

promote and support the arts in Los Angeles by providing cultural enrichment programs for the community, honoring the creative accomplishments of Black artists, and awarding scholarships to talented students from Los Angeles pursuing scholarly studies in the arts.

As I was looking through materials on artist Maren Hassinger, I saw a short mention of “Mrs. Bunche” donating to the organization. A quick glance through other materials confirmed that the Mrs. Bunche in question was indeed Ruth Bunche. This moment brought to mind how rich a life Ruth Bunche had lived that had yet to be accounted for separate from her husband. She, too, was concerned with efforts around racial justice, and similar mentions of her within archival material on Ralph Bunche exposes a life that was full of working towards justice in multiple ways.

Ruth and Ralph Bunche pictured with their two daughters Jane left, and Joan in 1938

While the current moment of this global pandemic has impeded my ability to fully bring to life the rich story of Ruth Bunche, this start is still exciting. A figure as prominent as Ralph Bunche undoubtedly would eclipse those around him. But considering the gendered position of Ruth Bunche in this narrative, it feels all the more urgent to eventually bring her story to the forefront. Ralph Bunche has both accolades and buildings to memorialize his impact. However, to speak Ruth’s name, celebrate her efforts, and excavate the archive to more fully narrativize her life would be powerful.

In this moment of both the global viral pandemic and the endemic nature of antiblackness, the specificity of attending to Black women’s stories is vital. If not major figures of a movement, Black women and femmes are often elided for the more masculinist retellings of past and current conditions. My time in the archives indicates that more must be done to unveil narratives that have been buried for more flashy stories. It illuminates a need to currently document moments inclusive of all that are part of the story. It reminds me that while not always named and celebrated as much as they should be, Black women have and continue to be critical players in efforts towards justice.