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Celebrating Now: CCDI’s Summer Fuse Event

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On July 6th, the Library of Congress hosted the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI)’s Summer Fuse, a hybrid event which celebrated the initiative’s inaugural grantees. CCDI is a four-year program encouraging creative uses of the Library’s digital collections to center the histories, lives and experiences of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic or Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander and other communities of color in the United States. CCDI is part of the Mellon grant-funded, Library-wide Of the People: Widening the Path program.

The event brought together members from the initiative’s advisory board, grantees, a cohort of Junior Fellows, Library staff, and audience members who participated in-person and virtually. While you will find some highlights from the event here, you can also view a video recording of the event online.

The event opened with remarks from Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who expressed that being at the event was “seeing the manifestation of an idea of making the Library of Congress relevant, useful, and inspiring for everyone in this country.” She said that this work was not just about opening up the Library’s “treasure chest,” but also about adding to it. Judith Conklin, the Library’s chief information officer, followed, saying “Amazing things can be done when we invite people to push the boundaries of technology to unlock new ways of seeing and experiencing the Library’s collections.”

The CCDI Grantees’ Work

During the event, the CCDI grantees presented on their projects and shared more about their upcoming work.

Scholar-in-Residence: Maya Cade

A photo of Maya Cade presenting at the CCDI Summer Fuse event.
Scholar-in-Residence, Maya Cade, provides background information on her project, “Black Film Archive: Tenderness in Black Film.” Library of Congress video.

Maya Cade, the creator and curator of Black Film Archive, believes that “love and tenderness… can change the trajectory of our lives.” She created the Black Film Archive during the wake of the protests against the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and wanted to respond to “a growing question among Black Americans: how does the media, especially film, represent our history?” Cade asked: “Can there ever be an accurate memorialization of our lives?”

In her work, Cade’s main concern is “centering Black people’s film knowledge.” She takes on a variety of roles as the creator of Black Film Archive, from developing the content to driving the artistic direction of the film repository. As a grantee for CCDI, she has engaged with staff from the Moving Image Research Center, which provides access to the Library’s motion picture and television collections. She plans to explore a myriad of collections, including the Alice Guy Blaché Film Collection and the Black Films Collection.