Diversity & Inclusion

One year later, an effort to preserve #BaltimoreUprising

The Maryland Historical Society's collection of images and audio from social media and other sources ensures the memory survives, no matter what happens to Twitter or YouTube.

Protests outside Camden Yards, April 25, 2015. (Photo by Stephen Babcock)

It’s the anniversary of Freddie Gray’s funeral.
There were peaceful protests before and after this date one year ago. But given how the events of April 27, 2015, shaped the conversation about addressing the city’s structural inequalities over the last year, the anniversary seems poised to be an important date in Baltimore for years to come.
The attention surrounding Gray’s death and the protests themselves was in many ways a reflection of modern communication that enables individual stories to shape larger narratives. Gray’s arrest gained attention after a cellphone video was posted online, and Twitter was a huge source of on-the-ground information during the protests. Google Maps became a way to show where incidents happened. A drone video surveyed the damage.
To gather the many types of documentation in one place and preserve it, the Maryland Historical Society put together a digital archive that includes photos from social media, oral histories and a map that shows where in the city the events of the week took place.
Check it out
“There’s a lot of material on the Internet, but no guarantee that those locations will exist indefinitely,” UMBC Associate Professor of Public History Denise Meringolo said in a statement. “It’s important to ask people to think about what will survive into the future, and what organizations will survive. It was fantastic to have the Maryland Historical Society say ‘let’s partner here,’ to make sure those voices survive regardless what happens to YouTube or Twitter.”

Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Donate to the Journalism Fund

Your support powers our independent journalism. Unlike most business-media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational contributions.

Trending

When global tech association CompTIA spun off its nonprofit arm, the TechGirlz curriculum went dark

Anne Arundel admits that ransomware attack targeted health data

He watched his tech specialties grow obsolete. But he’s still optimistic about the next frontiers.

Tenable, the Maryland cybersecurity juggernaut, is opening an office in Israel

Technically Media