Amena Brown:
Hey y'all, in this archived episode of HER with Amena Brown, I am talking with Doctor Meredith Evans. A historian, archivist, 74th president of the Society of American Archivists, director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, and the first Black woman to helm a presidential library.
Amena Brown:
Doctor Meredith shares why it's important to preserve and document history and how she navigates being first, only, different. Let's take a listen. Today we have a very distinguished guest as a part of the podcast. Like, we had to have security bring us to her. Okay? I'm happy to welcome to the podcast, manager of cultural institutions, historian, archivist, librarian, 74th president of the Society of American Archivists, currently the director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, also first African American woman to direct the Presidential Library. I want you to welcome Doctor Meredith Evans to the podcast. Crowd goes wild, crowd goes wild. Doctor Meredith, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Awesome, happy to be here.
Amena Brown:
Let me tell y'all how I met Doctor Meredith Evans, I got to give a special shout out to Austin Channing Brown. Because Austin Channing Brown, hopefully y'all have listened to her episode on this here podcast, as well, hopefully you have read her book, I'm Still Here. Because it's just everything.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
That's a word.
Amena Brown:
It's a whole book and a whole word all together. Austin Channing Brown is also my friend. And I get a text from her a couple weeks before her Atlanta book tour stop. And she was like, "Hey girl, so you're going to introduce me and LeCrae at our event." So, I not only meet you, but you were on stage before me. And then by the time I met you, I was like, "No, no. No, no, no, I think I should've gone first and then Doctor Meredith should've introduced them." The order, hmm-mm(negative). Doctor Meredith graciously agreed to have coffee with me, we met up at a Starbucks. And she basically fixed my life. She fixed my whole entire life over some chai. So, I am just so honored to have you on the podcast. We're not going to share most of what we talked about at coffee because it was for the coffee. But there's one thing that I asked Doctor Meredith to elaborate upon that she'll share with us.
Amena Brown:
I ask every guest, Doctor Meredith, an origin story question. You are an archivist, a librarian, a historian. What of that was reflected in your upbringing? Do you look back at your own story or family of origin in your life and think, "This was all leading me to the path to where I am now."? Or do you look at your early life and think, "I ended up a totally different way than I thought I would have."
Doctor Meredith Evans:
No, actually I think I have lots of things that led me to this, without me realizing it was going to lead me to this. I always kept things, very personal things, magazines, autograph books, papers, report cards, pictures. I kept things. And it was always organized. I didn't realize that until I moved and had to really move out. And I saw, "What's in this box?" And it's literally all the things that I had filed, it was my life in a box. Always loved history, was infatuated with Oprah Winfrey for a minute because I just thought look how you can expand people's minds through discussion of things. But we want people to really know where they've come from and what the future looks like. And you can't do that without some history.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
So, I knew I wanted to do something along those lines, I just didn't know what it was. And then I went to school for history and I loved it. And I thought, "I'm just going to go get my PhD, I'm going to do this." Life happens and I ended up managing in restaurants.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
My father passed away when I was a senior in college and he was a marketing VP. And I was always around corporate parents, but I was historian. But then I got this job. And I was like, "Oh, this is cool." And then he passed away and I was like, "Huh, grad school? I don't know." Then it was like, "Is this a job or is this a career?" And I didn't know. And then I made it a career, it was my first career. And I loved it. I loved managing people, I loved working with people. I felt like it was beyond giving advice, it was beyond that. It was really helping people better themselves. And then you could always see a tangible outcome. But then in a while I got tired. I was falling asleep during holiday dinners and you never get a day off and you never going to get a life.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
So, they also was very clear, particularly in the south, that women were not going to be GMs in restaurants. And People of Color were nothing but cooks and bus boys. So, that was a double sword for me. So, I left. I have friends who are librarians, and they were like, "Go to library school." And I thought, "Yeah, I can manage a library and be home by 6:00. I've been managing people for eight years, I can do this in the library world and be closer to history." And then I discovered archives. I knew about them because I had worked in them, I didn't know what the profession looked like. I took classes and then I really realized that's what I'm going to do.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Because people are writing history on the documents in these repositories. But their voice is missing in these repositories. I mean, even early century things in different European nations, its legacy of that specific person who built that legacy. For me, the goal was how do I build collections so people can see and hear the voices that have been left out for centuries? And that was always my goal, while managing people, which was always fun. So, it was sort of a double joy for me to do. The irony of this current position is that I wrote President Carter when I was way little, and invited myself to the White House-
Amena Brown:
Come on, invited myself.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
... for my birthday. I even sent a little dollar talking about, "This will help." And he wrote me back and sent my dollar back. And I have a little book on the White House, I still have that dollar and pen, I still have the note. And my letter is here in this collection.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
With these really crazy drawings. And I thought, "Look at that, full circle." That all this time these little things that I did as a kid that you just think are kids, everything comes back around in some kind of way. So, my boldness and then my archiving and my history are all wrapped in one, in this one little letter.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
It's very cool.
Amena Brown:
That is really cool, to think little Doctor Meredith, little, little was forecasting, in a way, what was going to come to you in your future.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Yeah, who knew?
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Fascinating.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And it's good to have different support systems around you to help guide some thoughts. But when I look back now, I can see all the things that led me to doing the work that I do, with the concerns and the heart that I have for it.
Amena Brown:
I learned the importance of an archivist going to Spelman, Taronda Spencer.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Taronda Spencer.
Amena Brown:
Yeah, was our archivist, may she rest in peace. And I just remember being so curious every time she would spend time with us, come into class or sometimes she just might be hanging out sometime at homecoming or whatever. And she would always have this ... I mean, her brain was this place that felt like she would just reach her hand in there and pull out this really interesting nugget of our history as Black women, the history of these women at our school that had come before us. Whenever I see the word archivist, I think of her. Because as a writer, I love storytelling. And she told some of the best stories. But it was even better because they weren't fictional.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Right, they were true.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Yeah.
Amena Brown:
They were actual accounts of history. And I never got a chance to go into the archives, I should do that now. It just felt like she was some superhero who was-
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Holly Smith, she's just as wonderful.
Amena Brown:
Yes, yes, Holly, I got to come there, actually go inside. Because it felt like Taronda would come out and talk with us and we'd be like, "We don't know what she does when she goes back in there."
Doctor Meredith Evans:
There's something to be said for the HBCU community or women's colleges or just colleges that are specific to certain audiences. Because they play on that legacy that they have. So, you learn so much, but you always know the foundation which you're standing on. I've worked a lot of places, and the bigger the university or the more public the university, the less you hear about the history and the legacy of the people that have gone before. I'm a Clark Atlanta grad, so I do miss that part of college. I call it old school HBCU, where we still had dorm mothers and we had a curfew. And people are like, "Why would you want to go through that?" And I said, but it did teach us, it taught men how to treat us and it taught us what to expect. There was something to be said for those things. And then to know the women and men that come before me.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I come from a Clark Atlanta family, my mother had gone, my aunt had gone. We meet the elders when we're at homecoming. And just seeing not just the growth of the institution, but seeing how difficult it was for them to come through and how they paved the way for us, I hate that we lose that. Even if you're not Greek or Greek, when they painted over the benches and things like that, that we do to take away the people who built the place, it's so hurtful. Because then the kids today think that they're doing everything on their own. That they're just in school to get a degree or this is where they had to go because that's where their parents went or this is what got paid for.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And not realizing the joy of being in a room full of women. Or a room full of African Americans. And being able to say in an academic setting, whatever you want to say. Whereas in predominate institutions, you're very cautious. Whether you realize it or not, you've very cautious of what you say and from what perspective you say it from. But in these more small liberal arts schools or an HBCU or a women's college, you have that comfort. And then the discomfort is you're dealing with people who look like you, act like you, talk like you, who are as smart as you. And that's a harsh realization for you.
Amena Brown:
Whoa, isn't it?
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Because you've been the only one. And then you get into this environment where you realize oh, there's more. Oh, I'm not ... Oh, okay, I'm not the only one this time. It's fascinating. It's crazy. You feel real uncomfortable at first and then you're embracing it. And you're like, "Wow." And then I look at all my sisters and brothers now from Clark and Morehouse and Morris Brown and Spelman.
Amena Brown:
Yes, Morris Brown, yes.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Who are lawyers and doctors and restaurant owners. And we remember that camaraderie and that strength that we gave each other. It's just a blessing.
Amena Brown:
That was totally my experience coming to Spelman. It was like I was a big fish in my little pond from home. So, I was used to being the only person that had been president of the such and such in high school.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Exactly.
Amena Brown:
And started the this and that in high school. And I remember that first year, being such a rude awakening.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Surprise!
Amena Brown:
Being like, "Oh, I would know about that because I was president-"
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I was too.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. And then hearing that person go, "Oh yeah, me too. And I also started this nonprofit when I was 16, and then I also started volunteering for the ..."
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Exactly.
Amena Brown:
And I was like, "Wait a second. Wait."
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Exactly. Yeah. It's interesting because I'm a federal employee now. And I remember, I tell this story how I got off the FBI list and I didn't even know I was on it. And the reason I was on it is because in high school I was really active in Amnesty International and the Apartheid Movement, I got to actually see Nelson Mandela. I had a really interesting time. So, when I got to college I guess I got quiet. And all of a sudden I got this weird letter, which I need to look for, I'm pretty sure I have it somewhere. That was like, "Just wanted to let you know that we are no longer looking at these lists and you are one of the people named." And I was like, "What?"
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And then I think about archiving. And I think about all the documents that we suppress or we don't want people to see. And truth is real. And I think over time, people need to be able to see how things came about. I miss print. I get the digital, it's easy. But I miss print. I miss the multiple memos where you had to write the change on the memo or somebody had to retype the memo.
Amena Brown:
Or the CC.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Or put it on the CC or the V1, V2. Or people had to sign off. So, if you didn't sign off, that means you didn't really read it. I miss that ability to track. It's a lot more difficult in the digital world. But I think about those days that shape how I think now. I think about my high school yearbook, I went to a Quaker School, one page is like Ephesians and the other page is Malcolm X. And I thought, "Huh, okay." I was down, I was down.
Amena Brown:
We love a combination.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I was like, "All right." It brings new meaning to the things my sister used to say to me now. My sister's older, now I get why she was concerned. I think she thought I was just going to march forever, get my fro by any means necessary.
Amena Brown:
Can you talk about the importance of archiving and the importance of documenting our history? I remember in my upbringing in a Black church, in my Black college upbringing we talked a lot about our oral history. And what was important about that, that it was important for us to hear the stories told from our elders. And I love about your work and the work of other Black archivists, that a part of that is also the documentation of our history. Why are both of those things important for us?
Doctor Meredith Evans:
First, archiving is documenting in any format. It really is. It's really trying to put together a collection of materials that can explain or speak to a person's life, an organization, an institution, a family, over time. And that's what you want to see. You hate to see the gaps. I love oral tradition. And I hate that we as a People of Color have to conform to the written word, only because that's not our heritage. I'd love to maintain both. I advocate for the print because if we don't, we get left out. And until we are in places of power or places of position or the people writing the narratives that is accepted by the masses, then we will continue to be left out.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
So, what I like to do in an archive setting is build collections, which means collecting papers, collecting pictures, collecting oral traditions from different groups of people that have had an impact on that community, that society, whatever it may be, that organization. Even if it's sharing everyday life, I think that's the other piece that we miss. You can look at a Civil War ledger and you can see the buying and selling of materials, slaves, the land, who owned what land, what part of the land. It's all in writing these big ledgers. What do we have now? How do we know where our families came from, what land they owned, what apartment they had? How do we know that? For us, sometimes it's oral. Is that proof, quote unquote? The document's the proof. Who has the deed to grand mama's house? Who knows what those taxes are? And when Aunt Maybelline passes, who's going to take that on?
Doctor Meredith Evans:
When we lose touch with family, we lose the story of the oral tradition, but we also lose the print. I'm always challenged by that. My original research was churches, black churches. I love my black churches, particularly at the times where we were the epicenter of community. We were the social services, police, we were the builders of banks and insurance and schools for our people, whether we were segregated or integrated, we were building things to better our community. Very much like the Jewish community has the Halal, and they still have the Halal. And they're very clear that this is a place for our children and our families to grow and be one. I don't know why we don't continue that tradition in any culture. African Americans, we tend to just ... We like to assimilate and be part, we're all American. And I get that. But we have some really important cultural things that we need to maintain in our communities, that we don't.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
So, if we're not going to continue to tell the stories, whether we lose contact with family or not, or whatever the reason may be, then where are the documents? Where are the photographs? Where are the pieces? I want my son to be able to see his great-great-grandparents. And we only have a few pictures, and those are now copies. Who has those originals? I want to be able to say, "I know who my great-great-great-grandfather's name is." Not sure I can. Because the stories don't continue down and there's no writing. There's no family Bible or no family tree written. There's no letter. And that's where we stop learning about ourselves.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
In the medical profession they say, "Oh, what's your family history?" In terms of health-wise. But I would just ask you, "What's your family history?" And if you can't go past two generations, then do you really know who you are? The best thing about those shows, like the Henry Louis Gates shows and the genealogy shows out there is watching him take people all the way back. Because people think they know, and they don't know. And of course our community's always like, "We're part Native American," "We're part this." And then he finds out and people find out that they're not.
Amena Brown:
That's what happened to my family, honey. They told us my grandfather's mother was Cherokee as the day is long. And I said, "Honey, I looked it up. That's just the biracial, that's not Native American. We love it, but that's not-"
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Your hair's straight because some Irish master went through and ... It's okay. Let's embrace that, we can forgive, we can heal, but recognize it for what it is. We may not have that in paper, but we can have that in oral tradition. And then we can look and see. There is some census things you can look for, for our heritage. I mean, I think the DNA testing's great. That's really great. There's a lot of them out there now. But do you take the time to go back to the census and the slave ledgers to try to trace your heritage? Every time I pass through a town that says Whitaker, which is my mother's maiden name, I'm thinking, "Huh, we got some cousins out here somewhere?" I'm sure that's a slave name, I get that. But there was probably 100 of us. So, it'd be interesting to see. For me, archiving is about having that combination of both.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
It's interesting, Lonnie Bunch, who's the director of the Museum on the Mall for African Americans. And we had this whole conversation on a panel discussion. Because people were like, "Well, you never know, people's memories are bad and the memory changes the history and they don't always know." There's some truth to that memory, whether it's exaggerated or not, we'll never know that. But if it's been passed down multiple times through multiple generations, there's some truth to that. And we should never say, "Well, the paper says this, so your story's false."
Amena Brown:
Because there could be many reasons why the paper would say a different thing from the story.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Right. And did we write the paper? Probably not. There's truth to those stories. I would never negate that. We like to use print as evidence. But in our community and as People of Color, that's not the only thing we can use.
Amena Brown:
Can you talk a little bit about your research in archiving in Black church settings? I'm personally curious about it because my great-grandfather was a bishop at Pentecostal Holiness Church in North Carolina. So, we were able to go back to the original church building and see, my great-grandfather and my grandfather and his brothers, they had a business where they built church furniture. So, we were able to go back to this original church building where he pastored. And of course all those intricate pulpits and in remembrance of me tables. I mean, it's heavy stuff. So, when churches would move from that building, they would leave the furniture.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Leave the stuff, right.
Amena Brown:
Because they were like, "What can we do with this?" But to be able to go back into that building and see that original furniture that my ancestors had built was so wonderful. And I was trying to call and find out, I've seen pictures of the choir in the choir stand. But all those things are scattered. And now the original church that was in that building is in a new place. So, I'm just curious to know, in your research, how are many Black churches archiving?
Doctor Meredith Evans:
They're not. Because nobody knows how to do it and what to do. I did a case study on three, four churches in Atlanta for my dissertation. I found deeds to the church in people's trunks of their car, or they'd have a third bedroom in their house with stuff. Or the church would have things in trash bags, not knowing what to do with it. Every new pastor, you clean out, not knowing what things are. Then there's places that create small little museums or they keep some records. I think people don't know what to do, which is always scary because then you lose stuff. And you don't have to keep it all. When I go through a collection, 90% of it, I don't keep. Average, give or take. But I am trained to know what to keep. And in a church setting, particularly older churches, you have to keep some stuff. You have to keep some minutes. You don't have to keep every program, you can keep the sick and shut in list, that's always useful. But you don't have to keep the whole program because everybody wrote the same thing on the program. That's not useful.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
What's useful is the sick and shut in because you can see people's growth or healing or not healing. Or the christenings, so you can see when people were christened. I mean, 56 years ago, people might not know their birthday. But they knew when they were baptized and that's what they would use for their birthday. So, there's some things that you have to keep. There's these letters that people want. When people went to war, they would send their dues back to the church.
Amena Brown:
Interesting.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And that's huge to see Billy at 18 in Vietnam or World War Two, committed to the church. "Say hi to mama." Or, "Use this to take care and buy new books or buy a Bible." That's where people's heart were and that's important to keep. But you wouldn't know that if you don't look at what you had. And I think there's photographs. You can see photographs of the old community, the land, that's really important in places like Atlanta, where we change street names like we pour a cup of water. We change street names, we rebuild on stuff, we change names, Old Fourth Ward. It's Historic Fourth Ward, there was a neighborhood there before y'all came back in there. It's not old, it's historic. But if you had pictures from the church picnics or when they went witnessing or when the choir sang outside, you can see what that street corner looked like before it became whatever the new name is now. Or you could see where the first church started underneath the condos where it is now.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I love the churches that still have small cemeteries. Even if people are built on top of people, it doesn't matter. Those stones tell you who they are. And then you can get a better sense of who's here and why and the babies. I mean, it's just those are tangible things churches need to maintain that financially they can't. Or they get a church historian who's not clear what to do. Or a new person comes in and wants to throw things away. You have to keep some things. And if the church doesn't feel comfortable, then you can give it to someplace that will. And that could be a public library, it could be another special collections or historical society. People will take some things because they want to know who the community was, before it is what it is now.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
But it's interesting, churches, because there's generations of people there. And people have memory. But if you don't have that younger generation in the church, they don't care. They don't know what you're talking about. And if you're a Christmas, Mother's Day, Easter person, you don't care about the history. But when it comes down to the funerals or you get back into church and you want to go there. And then you find out that three generations of your family have been at that church. Or they split and went to this one. Having some records or pictures or something is so useful. You'll even catch good gems. What's the big thing? What does every politician do? To this day, every politician when they want the black vote, what do they do?
Amena Brown:
They go right to the church.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Roll up to the church.
Amena Brown:
Go right to the church.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
State representative so-and-so, I'm a candidate for such-and-such.
Amena Brown:
Wants to bring greetings.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Bring greetings, right. You ain't never stepped foot in here, you don't even like to go to the store over here. But you going to come up in this church and be known, clap your hand a little, a little sway. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. I think, "Huh." This church in Durham, North Carolina, White Rock Baptist Church, they had taken minutes on the back of insurance forms, but it's one of the only black insurance companies. That's history in itself, just the paper itself was history. They had a flier that King was coming. I never found pictures, but they had this whole flyer about Martin Luther King Junior coming to their church. And I thought, "See, this is the kind of thing."
Amena Brown:
I had a little fascination with Alex Haley as a child because I actually read through Roots, I watched the original-
Doctor Meredith Evans:
The original, right.
Amena Brown:
... series when it came out. I watched the ... I don't know what you would call this new one. I'm like, "Is it updated? Is it an additional series that came out?"
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Additional, that's a good way to put it, additional.
Amena Brown:
Additional series that came out, I watched that. And one of the things that I've learned too, my parents and grandparents grew up in a very small town in North Carolina, so there were certain things that digitally I got to where I got certain information. And then after that it's like well now you got to go inside this office in here to find this information. But to your point, I went back to their hometown, I had one day. It was a Saturday, so I couldn't even get into the courthouse or anything like that. So, I just had my great-grandfather's name. And we went through the microfiche of the black newspaper that they'd had at that time. And I found this article about him. And it listed his siblings' names. And that's when I realized his mother had remarried. So, his name was listed with his step-father's last name, which is why we'd lost him.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Wow, see?
Amena Brown:
So, then it was like that little this opened up all this other stuff. Just knowing that. And my grandmother, to your point about the elders and what they remember, my grandmother sometimes would remember these, "Oh, I remember so-and-so used to have a store on such-and-such street." And at first you're like, "Is it important that she remembers that?" But then you're like, "Well, she's giving me some place and location right there."
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Right, exactly.
Amena Brown:
That little thing might lead me to another thing and finding more about our family.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
It blows my mind when they build buildings on something and they're like, "Oh, we just realized that this was an Indian burial ground." Or, "We didn't know that this was this." And I thought, "Did anybody look at anything before you just saw the vacant lot and cleared it?" In Saint Louis, they built the highway right between a Black cemetery.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And no one's the wiser. Until people started taking pictures and showing that actually grand-mama Mabel's buried on this left side of this highway and her husband's on the other side because you put the highway right in the middle.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
It's things like that that I think, I can't say it enough, Historic Fourth Ward. It bothers me that we want to erase foundations of things that were there, whether you liked it or not is not the point. Thank you for bringing some more vibrancy to a neighborhood, I guess. But honor it, don't forget about it.
Amena Brown:
And forget its origins and forget the layers of its history.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Yeah, don't do that.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Because it's just, it's not fair. It's not fair to the people who want to come back and see it, and then see a sky scraper.
Amena Brown:
A word today. You've had a chance in your career to participate in curating and archiving some amazing collections of work. Do you have two or three highlights in your career that you would say you look back on those moments and feel really proud to have been a part of archiving some of that history?
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I've got one from every institution.
Amena Brown:
Okay.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I don't work because I have to, I work because I like to. At the Woodruff Library in the Atlanta University Center, I was there when they brought in the King Papers.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And it was my job to work with the books, fascinating. There's two favorite things out of that collection for me. It's one of the books Doctor King had written the grocery list in the back of the book. I guess he thought it was a grocery list on paper he could take with him, but it was literally in the back of the book. It was like oranges, don't forget the milk. I was just like oh see, normal human. My other favorite thing from that collection is there are these postcards from Malcolm X when he was on the Hodge to King. And he sends enough and he changes his name each time until the end. And it's just the favorite thing in the collection for me, is to watch his transformation religiously and just as a man and as a person. And I always argue, because they saw more eye to eye than people think. And because people look at the media, they just assume that this is real. But they were very much in tune.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And it's interesting because I had a conversation with my son who's nine, he read a Malcolm X book. He said, "Malcolm X was troubled, had a troublesome childhood and he was violent." And I was like, "Well honey, if you saw your father get killed in the way in which he saw, you might want to bear some arms too, which is legal." I said, "You have the right to defend. Because he doesn't want that to happen to his family or somebody else close to him." And he said, "Oh." So, helping him see and then showing him the strength and the faith that he had. He was like, "He's a lot like King." I said, "Yeah." I said, "They both had the same agendas in many ways." And King's more militant than people want to lead on.
Amena Brown:
That part, with your misplaced quotes on Doctor King day.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And then I went to George Washington University in DC, where we got the National Education Association Collection. But my favorite is Robert Gibson, who was a Black ex-patriot in the literary world. And he was big on Cuba and communism and Amiri Baraka, he just fabulous writer, and living to this day. That was just a joy to get that collection. It was just something so different. I started an LGBTQ collection there in a very different way. Normally archivists, we clean out basements and attics and we convince you your things are worthy. In this instance, I had a friend who worked in student affairs who was part of the community, who sought out materials for me and brought them to me and was like, "Look, we should keep this, right?"
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And that's how the collection started. And it's fabulous. It turns out that Charlotte had a very old LGBTQ community, that they had women's clinics that actually served as safe spaces. They almost had a very similar to an African American Green Book, they had that in Charlotte for where you could stay safely. The quilt, AIDs quilts. I mean, it's just really fascinating. Drag, some of the best drag in Charlotte.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I mean, it was just really a fun collection and it was great to see the community heal because it turns out that there was still two prides, Black and white, and also just a place for people within their own community to get together and say, "Look at our stuff." Because everybody's hesitant to give their things to a predominate institution or something that seems white male dominated. But I think it was the point that here your history's going to be saved and safe. And here, you can commune if you need to, I think was really important and was an important shift for Charlotte and the university to be welcoming to all. Because you can't stay a strong academic institution if you're not going to be welcoming to all.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And then it was Saint Louis, and I worked at Wash U. And I actually interviewed right after Ferguson, and still took the job, the killing of Michael Brown was rough. I knew about it, we talked about it during my interview. But I took it. And I, strangely enough, Saint Louis is one of my favorite cities to have lived in. It's super quaint, you don't go into the county. Sorry, people from Saint Louis. But it's really great. It's a great town. But documenting Ferguson was really important to me. It was a group of us, librarians and archivists, and some faculty members. And our intention was to really stay objective, it really, really was. The killing of Michael Brown was less than 10 miles away from the university, we had staff and employees that had lived there. It was just a really trying time, the verdict was announced two blocks from my other office. I mean, it was really difficult.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
But our deal was, how do we archive things in real time? How do we maximize this digital technology and this cell phone technology? How do we make those things work in a way that we can control the narrative of the people? Because when Michael Brown was killed, what started as a local issue, became a global issue. And people came from around the world really, to this little bitty neighborhood, trying to help, or not. And then when the media got wind, it was media-centric. So, what about the people who live and work there? Where's their story? Because what you see on CNN is not their story. That's some news person coming in because they saw this Tweet.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I also think people don't understand the importance of Twitter. Twitter, in that instance, was the organizing. So, here I, 10 years earlier I'd looked at LCLC organizing papers. Keep your head down, if the water comes, turn to the right. They had all these non-violent steps. But it was all typed out, and this is what they handed you and they trained you on it. Here, we had Twitter. And in Twitter, people were sharing, "This is what you do if you get tear gassed." People from other countries were sharing with the activists on the ground in Saint Louis what to do if you get tear gassed. It was organizing points. It was, "Here's a link to a Go Fund Me because we need money because we're going to buy lunch meat and sandwiches and make lunch for these babies who can't go to school." That was how they communicated. It wasn't just hashtag Ferguson. It was hashtag Ferguson because it's working and helping and getting people organized to do some things.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
So, trying to capture all of that digitally was really important. We did reach out to Darren Wilson's contingencies and supporters and didn't get very far. We did ask archives to manage those websites, like kind of gather as much websites as possible. So, I think the Facebook page is back and the way finder and things like that. So, you can see all sides. People uploaded court documents and verdicts. People uploaded zines, there's a whole Black woman zine in that system that talks about Black women that were killed by the police. People uploaded music that they created. People took pictures of the murals and they would take pictures of the same wall over and over again because people would paint over it and paint something else. So, there's a record of that.
Amena Brown:
Interesting.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
It's not always easy to search, but it was really important it's captured. And it's not captured by the media, it's actually realtime. We asked people, "If you're out there and you want to upload it in a safe space, here you go." And they did. So, I think that's a proud moment. I try to bring the marginalized communities or the hidden voices to life at repositories that don't normally do that. They collect whoever gives them the stuff, and it's usually somebody with money or somebody who's part of the organization or the institution. And I get it, if you're not of that community, it may be hard to get that material. But at least we're at a point in our profession where people are going to try. 20, 30 years ago, nobody was even trying. I think back to that Hidden Figures movie, and as an archivist, all I can think about is nobody described anything well enough to know that this woman was Black and that she had accomplished all these things. From an archivist perspective, I mean, my mind is blown. Did they think she was passing? Because she clearly went to the colored restroom.
Amena Brown:
Walked so far.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
How did we miss this? How did the school that allowed the other women to go to school miss this? As an archivist, those are the things I'm fascinated by and I'm always like, if I could dig up those things. And then here, one of my ... This is a permanent collection and it's federal and it's records of the government. But it's White House records from Carter's Administration. And Carter did appoint the most People of Color and women in positions of any president. So, it's fascinating to see attorney generals and appellate court people and district court people, women, or People of Color, that he appointed or put in these positions. Eric Holder was a lawyer way, way, way back in the day, in the Carter Administration.
Amena Brown:
Wow. Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Ruth Ginsburg became appellate court in DC and district court under the Carter Administration.
Amena Brown:
Interesting.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
You look at these things and you're like, "Huh." And here is a man who didn't know King Junior, he knew Daddy King. Because this is the south.
Amena Brown:
Interesting, right.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Right? His life is fascinating and the materials here are fascinating. It has a lot of federal speak to it, but then it's also the generation that wrote notes. So, when you can catch that document where he wrote notes or Misses Carter wrote notes or somebody in the administration wrote notes, that's a gem. That's like, "Oh, this is what I was thinking. I took notes on this piece of paper," and it's still in here. And you can see how decisions were made and discussions were done. That's just the joy.
Amena Brown:
Wow. I am just overwhelmed at how amazing the work is that you've been able to do. And even hearing the collection from Ferguson and thinking about when we say the word history, we're thinking a lot of the time that those are times so far gone, which that history is important. But we are living in a moment that is also history. And the ability to capture that, wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I mean, there's a reason why people came up with SnapChat. Because they don't want to be remembered or they want their privacy. So, there's a thin line.
Amena Brown:
Sure.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
But I think about what is our life going to be like 10 years from now? I'm beating myself up every day because I have two more Shutterfly books to make, I try to make photo books for my son, I only have baby to three. I have to do three to six, and six to nine, that's my commitment. Because they're all on my hard drive or my phone or my whatever. And I want my son to have pictures of himself. I have two big photo albums of my life. It stops at about college, and then there's a wedding book. But I want him to have that. Because what is he going to show his kids? I have friends that have nothing. They don't have their military uniforms anymore, they don't have any photographs, they don't have anything. And they think that's okay, and I'm thinking that's not okay. You're not passing anything down. I have love letters from this dude in college, and I'm keeping them.
Amena Brown:
I know that's right.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I even found a picture and I was like, "Oh, I did good."
Amena Brown:
You got to keep record of that, that's right.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
You know what I'm saying? I'm just, you know? I had a life. I think it's important to remember that just the few events that you know about me, is not my life. I have a life. I have hair changes and clothes changes and music changes and relationship changes. And that is important to show my son and whoever he's with in the end, or my grandkids, so that they can see. My mother's like, "Oh, you're going to burn my journals." My mother was director of human resources for a major corporation, I'm not burning nothing. I'm about to flip through those suckers and be like, "That happened to me! This is how she handled that. Awesome." My dad died at 50. I never got to hear what it's like. He went from New York City from a community college to Western Michigan. Where if you look through that yearbook in 1963, it was like him and my godfather. I would love to sit and talk to my dad and say, "What was that like, to be in that cold state of Michigan as a city boy, born and raised in New York City? What was that like?"
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And I don't have that. I have no letter correspondence from him to his parents or no journal from him. So, I really don't know. And that's one of my little goals is to kind of go up there and see what you have on my dad and then find some people who might've known him and say, "What was my dad like then?" And it's interesting because it's historic. He was in the petroleum program. So, my dad did a degree in community college and joined this petroleum thing, and he stuck with it. And he became Shell Oil employee. And he stayed a Shell Oil employee from this petroleum program, that's who sponsored him. He could've gone to Exxon or Mobil, and he stayed at Shell. And he did that all the way up and decided to go corporate. He could've owned gas stations, he chose not. He chose the office. And he ended up doing marketing.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
My dad did the Auto Club books. So, as I look at the Shell Oil truck I just gave my son the other night, I'm sitting here going this truck is history. Your grandfather created this to kind of get the brand up, but also for you to play with. You know what I mean? But I have nothing written, these are the stories and what I remember him telling me. But I don't have it in writing. But does that mean it's not true? No.
Amena Brown:
You are the first African American woman to helm a presidential library, which is a huge deal.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And the youngest, I think. No, just kidding.
Amena Brown:
Come on, get all the accolades, we need all the accolades come together right now. Shonda Rhimes talks about, in her book Year of Yes, talks about being first or being only or being different, which I'm sure you have experienced varying degrees of this in the different positions that you've helmed. What do you have to say about, as marginalized people, what are some good, healthy ways to navigate being the first, being the only, being the different?
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Have a support system and have a belief in something. It's tiring. And it's okay to be fatigued, but it's tiring to walk in the room and be the only one. Particularly in the 21st century. It's exhausting. I think the first few meetings I went to, I believe in colors, so I had my maroon jacket on and some bright colored shirt. And I walk into this room, a sea of navy suits. And I thought, "Oh, I really stand out now." Be comfortable in your skin, but have that support system because you will get fatigued. And you won't, sometimes you don't even realize it. I also think it's a teachable moment. It's true what they say, the older you get, the less you're willing to deal with some things. It's not that you're not tolerant, I have good days and bad days. I don't mind talking about my hair. Honestly, I don't. But then there's days I kind of feel like you should just Google it.
Amena Brown:
This information is available to you, it's available.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
It is, yeah. I think my biggest issue is that I still see things in multiple ways. I see things as a woman, I see things as a Person of Color, as a Person of Color who's a woman, as an academic, as a mom. And the reason I think like that is because people always try to put me in a box that I don't fit in. I don't fit in your box. Particularly in the south. Yes, I was married when I had my son. Yes, I'm actually an executive. Why am I justifying my existence? Just embrace who I am and enjoy that. My other big issue right now is being talked over.
Amena Brown:
I almost just got mad just hearing you say that, I almost just got mad.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I love me some men, but I'm here, I'm in the room, and I'm intelligent and I run this place. Please stop looking past me, talking to John, because that's who you're most comfortable with, and then try to act like that's respectful to me. It's not. So, I try not to tolerate that. I have very convenient special ways of escorting people out or changing topics or allowing people to be a little more comfortable and forthright. But the talking over is just as bad as the mansplaining.
Amena Brown:
Oh dear.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
You're in my space. Respect me for just that. And if you can't, then don't come. It's okay. We can do stuff in writing until you get over it. I don't see why we should be subjected to that. Or why you think I'm not going to intervene and say something.
Amena Brown:
That part.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
I think they always think I'm not going to speak. I'm the director of the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and you're in my house.
Amena Brown:
A word.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And you brought me no gift. So, you should just then sit and let's have a dialogue about whatever we're supposed to have a dialogue on, and then you can leave. And if you don't want that conversation, just send me a note, email, and we'll dialogue that. Because I'm very comfortable in my skin. I'm sorry you are not comfortable in yours.
Amena Brown:
A word today, there's an offering if you also want to give the offering for that word.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
It's one of those things. It is one of those things. I've learned how to be quiet, I've learned when to speak, I've learned when to share some things in a different way. But I refuse to not stay true to myself. And I'm an extrovert in a very introverted profession. And I'm in a high level. And I don't feel the need to suppress who I am for your comfort all the time. I can be loud, I can be boisterous, I can be fun. But I do know what I'm doing. And I'm happy to hear ideas, I'm happy to give you resources to do your ideas. But be respectful.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. I'm going to take that home. Y'all might have to rewind that and replay that because that was good. When we went to coffee, this the one coffee tip y'all going to get here, because the rest of it is just only for coffee when me and Doctor Meredith sitting there, it don't make the podcast, okay? So, just the one little tip y'all get. When we were at coffee, you said something really profound to me. You talked about the different institutions that you've had an opportunity to partner with, work with, all these different junctures of your career. And you talked about how you don't make a career move if it's not a move up. You said you don't make lateral career moves. And when you said that, I got in my car and just reflected upon my own career.
Amena Brown:
I have had moments where I was thinking about a lateral move, I was thinking about surviving, I wasn't thinking about the trajectory of where I could go, where I wanted to go. Can you talk more about that and about that thought process?
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Yeah. I mean, if it's lateral, that means it's a job to you, it's a check. It pays the bills. If it's a career and you aspire to be more, do more in that area that you're working in, then it can't be a lateral move. And if it is a lateral move, once you get there, make it so it's not. And I think that's the key. And I will say this, as I find for women, we tend to sabotage ourselves and convince ourselves that we're not worthy or capable of. And that's not true. And I think we feel like we should manage like men, and that's not true. We have a different take on things. I won't go as far as saying we're nurturing, that's not what it is. But we do see things in a more complex way. We do multitask differently, we just respond to things different. But trying to act like John does not help.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
However, I will say, I've looked at a lot of resumes. So, my rule is if you've read it, you've touched it, you've done it. And that's really hard for women. "I don't know if I can explain that." Or, "I don't know if I've really done that." I look at more resumes where you talk to the person and they were a member of the team, but they wrote team lead. Or they said they led. And really, you took notes. Let's not play this game. So, each move I make, I look for certain things in jobs too. I want to be in the right environment. I like to live 15 minutes from a grocery store. I like to be on public transportation when I want to. I like to be near a movie theater, certain things that I like near me. So, I look for places like this.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
But when I get the job, I look for communities of people too. Are you passionate about your work? Can I help you become passionate about your work? Are you just here because they put you in this department, your whole family works at the school, so this is what you're going to do? I look at that. If it's more passionate people than, "I'm just going to come to work," I'm more likely to take the more passionate one. Pay is not everything. So, I look for places where I make the money that will keep my lifestyle. But really, it's more about can I come into work every day and enjoy it?
Amena Brown:
Because if you getting paid this amount and you hate what you do-
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Doesn't matter.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
What's your work environment got to look like? I've made sacrifices along the way, but as I move up, I'm thinking yeah, I don't think I want to be in a cubicle anymore. And if I do, can I pick my cube mate? Those are the things you have to think about. If I take a pay cut, do I have positions I can hire? Or am I going to be able to live in an area that I want to live in? Or will there be a bonus structure or a way for me to do some consulting on the side? I look at ways to do things to support the things that I want. But I also sacrifice. So, when you make these moves, it could be a title change. So, it could be a lateral move on paper by the time you finish negotiating, your title's different. Or your pay is different. Or your office is different. Something has changed. And then it's not lateral.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
And then you got to make sure that people are really receptive. Part of being interviewed is you interviewing them. You'll know if the people you have to work with or your boss or whoever is not the right fit. And that's not going to change. So, you have to be willing to walk away. And if you're not willing to walk away, then you set yourself up to be unhappy.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Particularly when you go places where you don't have support. DC was great, Charlotte was hard. I didn't really have people close. But I built community there and I loved it. Saint Louis wasn't close, it was a plane ride away. But I found community in Saint Louis and really great work. It was a really great town, it's got really cool neighborhoods, it was like old New York. You know, New York has Disney and Target now.
Amena Brown:
It's true, it's true.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Saint Louis, there was some people making pasta, there were some pasta shops. Which is, when you go up in New York, they had that. We don't have that now. You go to Olive Garden, whatever. But Saint Louis still had that. I mean, it was just great. Yeah, I think you have to really think about what you're trying to do and where you want to go. And it's okay if you want to stay lateral. But then either weather the storms where you are or reinvent yourself.
Amena Brown:
I feel like you're getting in my business now, Doctor Meredith, you're in my business now.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Well, because the older we get, the harder it is to reinvent. I mean, I can't retire anytime soon, I have a nine-year-old. But I can enjoy my work. Because if I'm not enjoying it, it affects him, it affects those around me, it affects my staff. So, I want to be happy or it's just a job. And if it's just a job, it's just a check. And that can go away. If you want to do just enough, then do just enough. But let people know that. And then if a new leader comes in and says, "We're going here." If you don't jump on that train, I don't know what's going to happen. If you don't get on the train, you'll be miserable, that person will me miserable, or they'll make other people miserable. And then the whole organization's miserable and we're all slowed down. It doesn't have to come to that.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Honesty goes far. My best employees are the ones that are like, "Doctor E, all I want to do is this. I'm not doing anything else, I don't care what you say." And I'm like, "You know what, thank you for your honesty."
Amena Brown:
Now I know.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
Thank you. But I do need you to smile in a meeting. That's all I need you to do. You just kick butt in this area, I will try to leave ... There might be one or two times I will ask you to do something because I really need it done. Because this is where we're moving and I need you to be able to agree to that. Because you don't want them to sour the pot. Because once they do that, it makes it hard for everybody.
Amena Brown:
Yep, that's so true.
Doctor Meredith Evans:
It is.
Amena Brown:
Ah, big thanks to Doctor Meredith Evans for schooling us on so many things. You can check out Doctor Meredith's work with the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum at CarterCenter.org. This week's edition of Give Her a Crown, I want to shout out Doctor Jessica B. Harris. Doctor Harris is an expert on the food and food ways of the African Diaspora and has written 12 books cataloging this history. Her most recent book is a memoir called My Soul Looks Back. If you watched High on the Hog on Netflix, and if you haven't, you should because it's amazing. High on the Hog was based on Doctor Harris's book of the same name. In this episode, Doctor Meredith Evans reminded us that it's important to keep archives of history for ourselves and for future generations to come. So, thank you, Doctor Jessica B. Harris, for keeping an archive of Black history, innovation, and creativity. Doctor Jessica B. Harris, give her a crown.
Amena Brown:
Her with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions. As a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.