African American Chronicles

What a wonderful and eye opening experience to spend time on Penn State's African American Chronicles and the University of Florida's African American Studies Program website. Both sites, albeit unique, capture the history of African Americans in the United States within the context of their respective schools. One learns a great deal about the African American experience through the experiences, testimonies, and histories of the faculty, staff and students at both institutions.

I was struck that as recently as 2001, members of the Penn State community received hate letters. I know this shows my naivette - but I sometimes feel we have come such a long way from the 19th and early to mid 20th centuries, that it still jars me that people hate based on color STILL! At the same time, the fact that students from all backgrounds were able to come together and form a "village" was heartening.

Penn State's African American chronicle site is beautifully done - going through the site, reviewing the archive of videos, and so forth, is like wandering through a museum on the history of African Americans and America's higher education system. Extremely well done! I can't help but chuckle at the still dominant white student population at the school...over Hispanic, African American, etc.