It took decades for a racist photo on Governor Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook page to come to light. Now one group wants to find out what else could be lurking out there, and they’re relying on a particular group of people to do the research.
When Chelsea Higgs Wise first heard news of the racist photo she immediately knew it couldn’t be the only image out there, and that it’s time to dig into our politicians’ pasts.
But her train of thought didn’t stop there. She also considered who should be doing that digging.
“And wouldn’t it be great if the eyes that were looking at the pictures and telling the story back to the community were young students of color?” she asked.
Higgs Wise facilitates community conversations on race. She knows that stories and history changes, depending on who is doing the telling.
So she turned to political science students at two of Virginia’s historically black universities, and began raising money for them to do this research.
The idea is to pay the students $25 an hour to comb through the old yearbooks of elected officials, then document and archive what they find.
“So we’re doing this in waves and trying to built this in order to truly support the students, not necessarily play gotcha with the politicians,” explained Higgs Wise.
In addition to money, the group is also looking for support from Virginia academics and digital researchers.
You can find more information here.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
