COMMUNITY ARCHIVES HAVE proved vital for giving a voice to underrepresented groups. Formal institutional archives have traditionally represented the dominant narrative in society and continue to do so, excluding access to the cultural records and artefacts of under-represented groups. Well-funded cultural heritage institutions have the infrastructures of support to provide long-term preservation and access on a global scale. Connecting community archives to this infrastructure of support is the overarching goal of my research (Copeland, 2015). How to make that connection in a way that respects the community and the purpose of the archive remains to be determined.

Bethel AME Church of Indianapolis’ Community Archive

This chapter will detail my journey with one particular community and its archive.

Bethel is the oldest African American church in the city of Indianapolis, and was once a vital part of a thriving African American community in the heart of the Indiana Avenue Jazz District. The church was founded in Indianapolis in 1836, and its archive documents a shared heritage and a living community. Over its 180 years of existence, the Bethel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church has played a vital role in the Underground Railroad, the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Indiana, the founding of the first formal School for Black Children in Indianapolis and the development of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. In the 1960s and the 1970s, the development of the federal interstate highway system and of Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) displaced many members of the community. Where the church was once surrounded by the homes and businesses of its members, high-end condominiums now encroach on the tiny parcel upon which the crumbling brick building stands, and IUPUI's five-storey School of Informatics and Computing, where I work, looms across the street (Figure 2.1).

For two years since 2014, I've worked closely with Olivia McGee-Lockhart, the Bethel AME Church of Indianapolis’ Keeper of History, church archivist and historian. Indianapolis is the state capital of Indiana in the United States. Our common goal is to preserve and make accessible the church's archive dating back to the 1850s. The oldest items in the archive include hand-written journals, letters and other evidence that the church was a station on the Underground Railroad, a network of individuals and organizations helping slaves to escape from the South (National Parks Service, n.d.).