Groups look to celebrate Spokane’s Black history with digital archiving event Saturday, asking residents to bring their family letters, pictures and more

Local entities are looking to preserve and celebrate Spokane’s Black history by creating a digital archive of photos, letters and other items from community members this weekend.

Residents are invited to bring those Black history items to be scanned and photographed for the archive Saturday at the Carl Maxey Center.

The Spokane Public Library, Carl Maxey Center, Eastern Washington University, Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture and Spokane Historic Preservation Office are hosting “Community Scanning Day” from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the center, 3114 E. 5th Ave., according to a Spokane Public Library news release.

Casual family snapshots, postcards and other items related to Black-owned businesses are welcome at the event, the release said. Items will be returned to the owner directly after the images are captured.

Alina Murcar, marketing and communications manager at the Spokane Public Library, said every story is encouraged. She said items don’t have to include prominent people or big life events.

“An important part of building is knowing where you’ve come from and the histories of people before you,” Jillisa Winkler, interim operations manager and program coordinator at the Carl Maxey Center, said in the release. “We are excited to build an archive to begin telling the stories of the rich Black history in Spokane, to showcase all of the amazing people who have come before us and have helped to establish and improve the lives of African Americans in the Inland Northwest.”

Dana Bronson, archivist and special collections librarian at the Spokane Public Library, told The Spokesman-Review that the archive at the Carl Maxey Center is a few years out.

In the meantime, Bronson said the Spokane Public Library will host the photos, printed materials and small objects in a digital archive.

“We decided that a digital archive would be a sustainable, kind of easy way to start sharing these stories and uplifting this history for people,” Bronson said.

Bronson said the stories can be hard to find in institutional archives in Spokane, but they do exist.

“We want to uplift and tell those stories and share and celebrate that history here that’s really rich in Spokane,” she said. “So, that’s kind of why we think this project is so important, just to create a place where people can find these stories easily and share and celebrate them the way they deserve to be.”