Humanities Teaching Lab: Frederick Douglass Day

The Dresher Center for the Humanities at UMBC invites you to celebrate the 200th birthday of Frederick Douglass at a digital “transcribe-a-thon,” to be held on February 14th in the UMBC Albin O. Kuhn Library, Room 259, from 12PM-2PM

Although Douglass was born into bondage, and never knew his birth date, he chose to celebrate every year on February 14. In a spirit of radical love, we will commemorate his birthday and Black History Month by joining a national event that will simultaneously transcribe portions of the Freedmen’s Bureau Papers.

TheDouglass Day Transcribe-a-thon is the first Humanities Teaching Lab (HT Lab) of the Dresher Center’s new Inclusion Imperative Program, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.Through the Inclusion Imperative Program, partners UMBC, Bowie State University, Coppin State University, and Howard University are cultivating a regional network of scholars, who are committed to diversity and inclusion in the humanities.Over the next four years, a variety of HT Labs will introduce faculty and students to new media tools and methods for community-engaged humanities teaching and learning experiences.During this HT Lab, faculty will learn about using activities such as crowdsourced transcription projects in the classroom and will be provided with a list of resources.

Please join colleagues at UMBC for this special event. We'll also have food, a birthday cake, and a dramatic reading of Douglass' speech from the 1876 unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Washington, DC.

Laptops will be provided; however, personal laptops will be permitted. If you will use your own laptop, please sign up on the Smithsonian Transcription Center https://transcription.si.edu

Space is limited. To register for the event:https://goo.gl/forms/ZyQvskaZEk01vnZ32

Day of the Transcribe-a-thon

TimeSession

12:00 pmReading of Frederick Douglass speech and distribution of birthday cake in Library Rotunda

12:40 pmIntroductions, history of Colored Conventions, Freedmen's Bureau, and Frederick Douglass in Library Room 259

12:50 pmHow to transcribe/transcribing in Library 259

Please contact Courtney Hobson (chobson1@umbc.edu), Dresher Center Coordinator, with any questions.

Snow Date: Monday, February 19, 12-2pm

Freedmen Bureau’s Transcription Project presented by the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian Transcription Center, and the Colored Conventions Project.

Campus event sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Albin O. Kuhn Library, the Department of History, and the Department of Africana Studies