National Council on Public History (NCPH; @publichistorian) Instagram Takeover, Day 1 of 5. Intro.
From February 20 - 24, 2023, I tookover the National Council on Public History’s Instagram account. It was their first one for 2023. To give visitors to the accounts, mine (@wrkSHapkiloWatt) and NCPH’s (@publichistorian), a taste of one of my favorite things, I presented the captions from the perspective of exploring the New York City / MTA subway system.
Also, I had the idea of picking a word of the week. Throughout the week, I wove the word I chose, “narrative”, in my captions, which were narrations about my offerings to public history, historic preservation, and my favorite art museum - the New York City / MTA subway system. It's a taste of Beyond Integrity in (X), Black in Historic Preservation, and (un)Redact the Facts sprinkled with subway art. Thanks to NCPH for having me.
I now present NCPH Instagram Takeover, Day 1, Intro.
Hello there, my name is k. kennedy Whiters (she/her), “a girl from Chicago,” specifically the Chicagoland-area. Based in NYC, I own my own boutique architecture firm (@wrkshapkilowatt) that specializes in historic preservation, owner’s representation/construction project management, and racially equitable communications. While we both wait for the train in the largest public transit system in the United States, I will share a bit about me and my perspective on the word “narrative”. What might seem to be a week’s time, will go by quickly!
Throughout the course of my personal history I have lived in multiple places: Seattle, Elkins, WV, overseas, and the longest in the Chicagoland-area. It was my experience on the West Side of Chicago that motivated me to return to college to become an architect.
When you think about the West Side of Chicago, what do you think about? If you immediately think of crime and violence or “a bad neighborhood”, there is more to the story. If your immediate thoughts were of violence, etc., I understand, because this is the perception we receive in media, historical interpretations, a narrative that the people who live there, lived there in the past did not write, or someone like me who lived across the street and worked there. There is beauty everywhere and the West Side and the South Side of Chicago are no different.
Did you know that there is a building designed by one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s draftspersons, William Drummond, on the West Side of Chicago? Or, that there is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in the heart of the West Side? All of these facts I learned while researching the history of the West Side for my year of service there for AmeriCorps. Because of this research, instead of continuing after AmeriCorps to medical school, I returned to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to complete dual masters degrees in architecture and urban planning, with a concentration in history and preservation.
This week, I will share how I have leveraged my education and experience in the name of service of unredacting the facts of historical narratives for racial equity and healing.
As it is #BlackHistoryMonth, more about “The Girl from Chicago,” the movie, not me:
The Girl from Chicago (1932) written and directed by Oscar Micheaux (1884-1951), a film that critics consider one of his greatest works. Micheaux was a pioneer author, book publisher, movie director and producer of over 44 silent and sound films. He portrayed contemporary Black life through a lens of reality as opposed to the caricatures of minstrel shows. And, he portrayed his lived experience as a Black man. For the aforementioned reasons critics considered him controversial yet still, he was the most successful Black filmmaker of the first half of the 20th C. Netflix subscribers, there is a great documentary about the history of Black film, "Is The Black Enough For You" (2022) – Micheaux is a continuous thread in the narrative. And, the Criterion Collection has an Oscar Micheaux film collection.
Credits:
1 - Oscar Micheaux. THE GIRL FROM CHICAGO. USA, 1932. Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. Used for historical education purposes only.
2 - Oscar Micheaux. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Micheaux
3 - "The Girl from Chicago" Movie Poster. Micheaux Productions, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_from_Chicago#cite_note-2