Creating Knowledge with the Public: - Recherche en IA spécialisée au MIT

Creating Knowledge with the Public:
Disrupting the Expert/Audience Hierarchy

Denise D. Meringolo with Lee Boot,
Denise Griffin Johnson & Maureen O’Neill

This essay provides both a philosophy and a case study to define, analyze, and ex-
plore community-centered public history practice. In its ideal form, community-
centered public history practice strives for equity and inclusion. It is service-oriented.
It is often future-focused. On the ground, in real time, community-centered public
history practice requires constant recalibration, humility, and active collaboration
that can be challenging for academically trained scholars to fully embrace. The co-
authors share their experiences and impressions in order to highlight both the diffi-
culty and the value of this work.

P ublic history is an interdisciplinary field composed of individuals with a

common interest in understanding the past. Public historians work for
museums, historical societies, government agencies, consulting firms,
and academic departments. Many deliver original content and translate special-
ized knowledge to nonexpert audiences. But others practice community-centered
public history, engaging self-identified public(s) as equal partners in a process of
inquiry, recherche, and interpretation. They position themselves not as authorita-
tive experts but as collaborators in the cocreation of knowledge.1 Community-
centered public history challenges deeply held beliefs about scholarship and au-
thority. It requires constant attention to power dynamics, epistemology, expres-
sion, la possession, and accessibility.2 Community-centered public history can gen-
erate critical understandings of the human condition that are rooted in place, em-
bodied in lived experiences, and responsive to the questions, needs, and interests
identified by a broad social network.3

C ommunity-centered public historians strive to be both responsive and re-

sponsible. Our work requires us to be responsive to the needs and interests
of the communities we serve and responsible advocates on their behalf.
En même temps, we remain responsible for upholding the highest standards of
our disciplines, and responsive to questions and critique from our academically

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oriented colleagues.4 Balancing the demands of the discipline with those of our
collaborators requires constant recalibration. We must occupy a clear ethical po-
sition, building relationships and trust before we begin any work. We must listen
to our community partners before we frame questions and shift the typical orien-
tation of scholarly inquiry, honoring life experience as a legitimate source of both
questions and knowledge. We put history to work in ways that require us to align
ourselves with the people we serve.5 Community-based practice demands humil-
ville, self-discipline, and compassion. Our role in any given collaboration should
begin with a question rooted in service. Not “what can I tell you about the past?»
but rather, “how might I best put my particular skills to work to help you answer
your own questions or accomplish your own goals?»

Community-centered public historians seek to activate the past for the pres-
ent. We believe that engaging people in a process of knowledge creation can have a
profound–if unpredictable–impact on the communities we serve. This requires
a deep commitment to equity, inclusivity, and truth. Our work exposes systemic
racism and inequity in the realm of culture. Commemorative statues, interpret-
ed landscapes, and collecting institutions have come under long-overdue public
scrutiny in the twenty-first century. Rather than inspiring exploration or sparking
dialogue, these places represent exclusive ideas about the past and silence coun-
ternarratives and experiences that challenge their ideological project to advance
a belief that the past was both benign and simple. Effective community-centered
public history practice can transform both public space and public uses of the past
but only if it challenges existing power structures, insists on truth-telling, allows
for discomfort, and does not shy away from dismantling institutions that no lon-
ger serve us.6

W hat does community-centered public history practice look like in

real time?7 Community-centered public history is best practiced
slowly, but sometimes events impacting the people we serve require
us to work quickly. Such was the case in our effort to provide a meaningful, concernant-
sponsible, and authentic response for the people engaged in the Baltimore Up-
rising. The Uprising began on April 12, 2015. Baltimore city police, patrolling in
the Sandtown/Winchester neighborhood, chased a twenty-five-year-old man
named Freddie Gray. They handcuffed him and dragged him to a police van.
Gray was injured during this encounter and repeatedly asked for medical assis-
tance. Plutôt, officers tossed him into the back of the vehicle, failing to secure
him safely. Gray suffered additional injury as the van bumped and jerked along
city streets for thirty minutes. People assembled outside the local police station,
protesting both the brutality of the arrest and the failure of police to provide
medical aid. After Freddie Gray died on April 19 from a spinal injury, the pro-
tests expanded.

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151 (3) Summer 2022Meringolo, Boot, Griffin Johnson & O’Neill

Police violence against Black men has long been a subject of protest. As po-
lice departments began to acquire military-grade weapons and gear in the 1960s,
protests became more persistent and more visible. Arguably, cependant, public de-
bate, civic unrest, and media attention around this issue did not enter into broad
public consciousness until the 1990s.8 Active opposition to the violent policing of
Black people led to the 2013 creation of Black Lives Matter. Founders Alicia Garza,
Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi established the organization in response to
the murder of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin by a vigilante.9 By the time of
Freddie Gray’s arrest, Black Lives Matter had organized two high-profile protests
against the police: the first after the July 2014 murder of eighteen-year-old Michael
Brun, shot twelve times by Ferguson, Missouri, police after allegedly stealing ci-
gars; and the second after the November 2014 murder of twelve-year-old Tamir
Rice in Cleveland, Ohio. Rice was playing with a toy pellet gun when shot by police.
Because the protests in Baltimore were recognizable as part of a national
mouvement, they attracted national media attention. Intense focus on incidents
of property damage and looting (most of which took place on April 27, the day
of Freddie Gray’s funeral) shaped public perception.10 Reporters and politi-
cians alike described an encounter between police and a crowd of young people
at Mondawmin Mall in West Baltimore as the moment when protests became a
“riot.”11 Governor Larry Hogan activated the National Guard. City Mayor Steph-
anie Rawlings-Blake declared a citywide curfew.12 Both she and President Barack
Obama attracted outrage from activists for their use of the term “thugs.” In com-
ments he made on April 28, Obama distinguished between “criminals and thugs
who tore up the city” from those who had participated in “several days of peace-
ful protests,” which he argued should have received more media attention.13
Rawlings-Blake similarly said, “It is very clear there is a difference with the peace-
ful protests.”14 Regardless, media outlets across the country repeated the charge
that Baltimore was suffering through a “riot” perpetrated by “thugs,” language
that simplified a complex situation and delegitimized activists’ efforts to draw at-
tention to the plague of police violence.

From the vantage point of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
(UMBC), cependant, the death of Freddie Gray and the protests that followed were
not national dramas unfolding on television. Then-President Freeman Hrabowski
reflected on the fact that he had crossed paths with Freddie Gray’s father. The el-
der Gray had been a student at Coppin State when Hrabowski was an administra-
tor there.15 Students, alumni, staff, and faculty, many of whom were born, live, ou
work in Baltimore, participated in demonstrations.

Seeking to unpack the impact of the unrest on the campus community, UMBC
scholars organized a teach-in on campus. Faculty offered insights into the ongo-
ing crisis of police violence and the history of racial injustice in Baltimore. Le
teach-in provided valuable context during a tumultuous moment. It also repre-

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Dédale, le Journal de l'Académie américaine des arts & SciencesCreating Knowledge with the Public

sented the University’s broad commitment to public engagement. In the months
and years after the town hall, UMBC students, faculty, and administrators pro-
duced a variety of projects, articles, syllabi, and events to interpret and commem-
orate the Uprising.16

Mais, in the moment, the teach-in also revealed a sharp divide in the public hu-
manities. Some expressed frustration, anger, and sadness that the teach-in seemed
both to gloss over racism on campus and to compound it by co-opting Black peo-
ple’s experiences as the object of intellectual inquiry. These feelings were ex-
pressed by members of the campus community who had first-hand encounters
with microaggressions, injustice, inequity, and violence. In some ways, the teach-
in delegitimized the epistemological value of their stories just as the word “thugs”
had flattened a complicated and diverse series of responses to injustice.

During the Uprising, those directly impacted by its deep societal roots did not
need experts to tell a story of injustice to them. They needed to be centered in a
conversation about inequality, racism, injustice, and violence. They needed to be
heard, not addressed. It was evident that the moment demanded something more
akin to community-centered public history.

T he events unfolding in Baltimore, their characterization in the media, et

the extent to which both of these revealed and exacerbated systemic rac-
ism all became central to urgent discussions taking place in my public his-
tory classroom. My students and I worried about the stories emerging about the
Uprising, concerned that the voices of protesters and activists would be silenced.
Histories of social and political disruption often originate in official records
that emphasize the perspectives of police officers, government leaders, and me-
dia figures. These records become collections, held in archives and museums. Le
stature of these institutions lends them a false sense of objectivity. Taken together,
these conditions reinforce damaging fictions. Individual actors bolstered by their
proximity to institutions conferring authority–the mayor’s office, the police de-
partment, the historical society, or the university–appear to direct the course of
histoire, while groups of people operating outside formal power structures appear
as little more than a frustrated mob or as victims. We are left with a historical
landscape that is more than simply exclusive; it is implicated in the reproduction
of inequality, and it undermines our efforts to foster critical reflection.17

My students and I decided that the most responsible way for us to be of ser-
vice was to create a space where the people most directly impacted by the condi-
tions leading up to the Baltimore Uprising and those involved in the protests could
control their representation. We established Preserve the Baltimore Uprising, un
crowdsourced, digital collection. Individuals can upload digital materials directly
to the collection, and they control the decision about whether a given item goes
public or remains private.

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151 (3) Summer 2022Meringolo, Boot, Griffin Johnson & O’Neill

The collection was founded on a community-centered philosophy. By adopt-
ing crowdsourcing as its primary method, we built a space where local people can
create an alternative to the official narrative taking shape in the media. It also di-
rectly challenges the exclusive collections practices, long undertaken by cultural
institutions.

But collecting is only a first, necessary step in a community-centered public
history process. Dans 2017, I received support from the Whiting Foundation to acti-
vate the collection as a platform for cocreation and dialogue. Entre juin 2018
and December 2019, I worked with a broad range of culture activists, high school
students and teachers, community-based organizations, artistes, and university
faculty in a collaborative process to develop a deeper, community-centered un-
derstanding of the causes and consequences of the Baltimore Uprising of 2015.

The project unfolded in parallel arenas. I worked with 150 students and nine
teachers at three city high schools: Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Baltimore
City College High School, and Bard College High School. D'abord, we explored the
history and value of museum and archival collections. Ensemble, we examined the
ways in which collecting practices have shaped misleading interpretations of the
past. Students came to recognize that gathering stories and conducting oral his-
tories could be a form of community service. Deuxième, we engaged in a process of
collaborative inquiry. We used materials in the digital collection to identify focal
points for dialogue. Students participated in small story circles, sharing their own
memories and experiences to help identify questions. They read a variety of re-
ports on the causes and consequences of the Uprising. I worked with them to un-
pack these sources and develop research projects based on their questions. Troisième,
I trained them in oral history methods. Enfin, I worked with teachers to facilitate
collaborative interpretation, supporting students in the development of a variety
of projects that enabled them to arrive at new understandings of the history and
impact of racial injustice in Baltimore.

Maureen O’Neill, Library Media Specialist and Film Teacher at Baltimore Poly-
technic Institute, served as a key partner. She recognized the ways in which com-
munity-centered collaboration differed from other forms of university-school
partnerships. Her reflection on our collaboration makes particular note of the
rapport we developed:

Our high school’s partnership with UMBC was focused on organizing a student-driven
oral history/public history project for 2018–2019 school year, using the Preserve the
Baltimore Uprising digital collection as a springboard to encourage students to reflect
on these events, explore their history, and develop creative, interpretive projects. Ce
was merely the galvanizing concept, cependant, since Denise Meringolo demonstrated
just how much possibility can manifest in schools and communities when academics
wield their power and resources in true partnership and collaboration with schools.

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While I have experienced many “partnerships” with colleges and universities, ils
are most often driven by the dictates and structures of grant requirements and the lit-
eral logistics of separate worlds. Many academics either don’t remember their own
schooling experiences before higher education, or they are consciously avoiding a re-
turn to our very controlled and paternally-structured worlds. The intellectual freedom
advocated on college campuses is difficult to replicate when our K–12 physical and re-
source limitations are so much more structured in a high school than on a college cam-
pus. Schedules are more rigid and complex in high schools, and this matrix of time and
space can constrict the dialogue, communication and exchange that takes place with-
in this type of partnership.

Denise was very in touch with our world at Poly, and she soon realized that she would
have to be the one to demonstrate the most flexibility in order to make the partnership
réussi. She spent the physical time necessary on our campus to be present and de-
velop the relationships necessary to make our partnership even logistically possible.
She would spend an entire day in our school library so that she could meet with dif-
ferent students and teachers throughout our school day, rather than asking us to re-
arrange student and teacher availability to meet a narrow visit timeframe for her ben-
efit. This was significant because it removed participation barriers for us in the high
school, both mentally and physically. The complexity required for a K–12 school to
meet with academic volunteers, mentors, etc., is almost more than the benefits are
worth for many schools because our bandwidth for organizing such events is dwin-
dling every day under the increased demands of K–12 bureaucracy.

For academics to “get out of the way” in order to support the work happening in
schools and communities, based on my experience with Denise, means that the aca-
demics themselves must be more present. Denise was physically present in our school,
bringing snacks to our students as she sat and talked with them. She was present as she
led a workshop in oral history interviews for our AP Research class, providing us with
digital audio recorders and recommending audio transcription services that we still
use several years later. She was emotionally present with us, speaking to me about my
struggles outside school caring for my dying mother as I faced the daily demands of
my teaching job. She was intellectually present in the ways which she allowed for our
partnership pathways on this project to be sculpted by the interests and abilities of our
students and teachers, not just the demands of her grant or her university department.
Par exemple, she had initially envisioned our oral history work as something that
could be used to support National History Day–type projects, but that wasn’t where
the student interest or energies manifested during that year. She also recognized that
student and teacher time and efforts are valuable, and she placed a monetary value on
participation so that participants’ contributions were paid through stipends. Our stu-
dents do not have extensive amounts of leisure time, waiting to be filled. They have
families that need financial contributions. Our students hold jobs while taking full

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151 (3) Summer 2022Meringolo, Boot, Griffin Johnson & O’Neill

academic course loads. Denise understood this and made our students’ participation
possible by meeting us “where we lived” here at our school.

But such work requires courage. When Denise first approached me about the project,
she explained in an email, “I see this project as a framework within which there is sig-
nificant flexibility for meeting specific school/teacher/student needs and interests . . .
leaving specifics unknown was the right decision but it is also making me anxious!!»
Educational systems, corporations, foundations, all get very nervous when approached
with the unknown. We must test and assess and quantify our learning experiences so
that no child is left behind. But there are other ways of being left behind, and one of
them is being left alone, being kept apart from each other. For academics’ work to be rel-
evant, it must be grounded in full-fledged time, space and relationship with we who are
their partners. Denise, our academic partner, met with us in our own space. She listened
to what was in our curriculum and our plans. She listened to the students and their goals
for the year. She witnessed their talents. And she returned, week after month for the
whole school year, even when it was colder and darker and more difficult to do so.

Denise’s work was ultimately focused on community and young peoples’ experiences
of the Baltimore Uprising in response to the death of Freddie Gray. Part of what led to
that event was a disinclination to listen to people and communities, to deny people’s
humanity. One of the key ways this is done is by silencing people and their stories. De-
nise made sure that she “listened” to our school community in multiple ways, by talking
with us in ways that supported us and didn’t stress us for her own academic objectives.
By engaging in this kind of work, she helped to ameliorate systems and structures of
oppression which continue through silence and the absence of human relationships.

O’Neill describes the elements of a successful community-centered project.
The collaboration worked because we refused to put ourselves as experts at the
center of the work. Plutôt, we engaged in deep listening and facilitated both dia-
logue and reflection that freed students and teachers to construct truthful stories
about the Uprising.

The project also took shape in community spaces in and around West Baltimore.
This work was led by Denise Griffin Johnson, a CultureWorks Culture Agent for the
U.S. Department of Arts and Culture.18 A West Baltimore native, culture activist,
and educator, Griffin Johnson uses story circles as a method for moving grassroots
ideas, interests, and questions from the margins to the center of public humanities.
Her description of her process captures the ways in which community-centered
practice can disrupt more traditional hierarchies of knowledge production:

The Story Circle makes us human. The practice takes away perceived power based on
a societal perspective that sometimes, we use to define ourselves, things, titles, plac-
es, status, etc..

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We gather in a Story Circle and give a prompt to share a story. It is a story about an
experience you had, you remember. You usually can recall it; maybe because it made
you feel, or how you were judged, or impacted, maybe it provided you an epiphany
to further your human consciousness. je me souviens, when a Design and Architecture Sym-
posium, asked me to facilitate a Story Circle. The focus of the symposium and the
prompt asked how Design and Architecture has influenced or disrupted community
passage. It was a big circle, over 20 participants. They all shared a story. No one in the
circle shared a story about Design and Architecture disruption of the passage of peo-
ple moving through their community.

Plutôt, participants talked about things they experienced in their lives that creat-
ed an emphasis or path for their forward movement in a certain profession or to sup-
port community empowerment work. All the stories were an expression of human
interactions.

As this example shows us, the Story Circle is a Cultural practice, a tool, a method, à
get people together, to better understand one another, build bridges, help one another
accept and understand their interpretation of their experiences and values. Story Cir-
cles re-connect, connect, build fellowship and build community.

I like to recall my understanding of working with both Dr. Meringolo and Mr. Boot.
Our conversations originated when I was invited to UMBC for a discussion about pub-
lic humanities “Who Talks, Who listens, and Who Matters.” I was fascinated then,
and I still am fascinated today, when I hear someone say “they give a voice to people.”
What does that really mean?

While there are people in our society who are not able to express themselves verbally,
due to a disability, most of us are verbal and all of us have our own voice. During the
session, Docteur. Meringolo talked about Preserving the Baltimore Uprising. She had been
collecting information and other things as a historian. Preserving and honoring histo-
ry is so important, directly related to culture for me.

As a Cultural Organizer, I found what she was doing interesting in that people created
the actions of the Baltimore Uprising and therefore, in my practice as a Cultural Orga-
nizer, I believed strongly their voices and stories should be preserved, honored, and re-
spected. The people did the work, created the action and the action extended beyond
the individual to the collective.

The Collection of stories and filming for the Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship
provided space for community to express feeling and share ideology and resources. Il
also helped to give meaning to the action from a human perspective. The filming pro-
vided high quality viewing, the announcements were artistic, creating community ac-
tions into art, and the participants from high school students, teachers, community
and others were interested in partaking in the further creation of community.

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151 (3) Summer 2022Meringolo, Boot, Griffin Johnson & O’Neill

Why is this practice relevant? I recall some of the expressions and thankfulness that I
heard from participants of the Story Circles from the Whiting Project. The stories that
were shared, I hold in high regard and evolved as a human soul through the practice
and interactions.

I was amazed when a high school student shared Dr. Cornel West’s definition of com-
munity. I was grateful that a high school teacher showed up in community to ask for
support for her colleagues and student body to discuss the Baltimore Uprising. Un-
other participant acknowledged the therapeutic value of the discussion and expressed
gratitude. Others wanted to be part of the experience because it created community.

The Story Circle sets the environment for us to have the opportunity to be honored,
respected, and listened to, as we can come to realize we are all a part of community, si
we allow ourselves to be.

The ending of a Story Circle creates a 3rd story. The story is the middle; the 3rd story
begins a new narrative, a new understanding, a connection with one another that pro-
vides the opportunity to build community.

Denise Griffin Johnson’s language is poetry. So is her process. As her reflection
suggests, she is appropriately suspicious of the questions raised by those coming
into communities from institutions that have excluded or dismissed embodied
connaissance. She also trusts people to speak their truth even in oppressive contexts.
She positions herself as a conduit, coming from a place of intimate community
knowledge and finely honed dialogic skill. She does not speak for the community.
Nor does she need to amplify their voices. Plutôt, she recognizes that a crack in
the structure is a space where knowledge can blossom.

We had planned to bring students from several schools together with mem-
bers of community groups to foster dialogue across boundaries of generation and
neighborhood. Malheureusement, we could never successfully connect the two sides
of the project. Plutôt, we came to understand the story circles and the student
work as two forms of community-centered public history practice. Denise Griffin
Johnson worked with adults at the Arch Social Club, a historically Black organi-
zation in West Baltimore, and with members of the Baltimore Police Monitoring
Team, a community-based organization designed to foster better relationships
between city residents and law enforcement.

Lee Boot, a media artist and filmmaker at UMBC, and his students filmed these
events and created four short films to document the knowledge shared by local
people.19 These films are now linked to the digital collection. Boot views his role
in the project this way:

I’ve worked with cultural organizer, Denise Griffin Johnson, for several years starting
with our collaboration on a project to bring the annual meeting of the Imaging Amer-

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Dédale, le Journal de l'Académie américaine des arts & SciencesCreating Knowledge with the Public

ica organization to Baltimore back in 2015. This has given me a number of opportu-
nities to experience and film story circles as Denise crafted them. The power of them
struck me immediately but has also deepened with time. I’ve seen how people honor
one another by showing up, sitting with one another, and sharing something mean-
ingful in a ritual of respectful listening and engagement. In story circles, versus, say,
“town halls,” I’ve observed a depth and breadth of telling and listening that I had not
previously experienced. Like the best of the arts, story circles are an evolved structure
that builds social capital–meaning relationships and trust. They take time, but ulti-
mately allow for ideas to take root, for collective action to emerge. Though they might
not always build consensus, they always feel like progress.

A criticism often leveled at news and documentary films is that they’re not often en-
tertaining enough to hold an audience. As a filmmaker making documentary works,
one hears that people don’t like “talking heads.” Nothing is more boring. I find this
curious. When I listen to friends and family talk about their favorite stories, si
in film or in books, a large portion of what I hear is descriptions of people (using their
heads–both literally and figuratively) to talk in memorable and moving ways. Même
spectacular films, filled with action, pivot on moments when a character, through di-
alog, manages to convey something critical and meaningful to another. Bien sûr, it’s
not just media; it’s life. What do we talk about with family or friends at the end of the
day? It’s not how someone might have rushed down the hall toward me; it’s what they
said when they got there. The story circle is a sacred art form designed to create such
moments. For this reason, I am committed to story circles, and to extending and am-
plifying them–lifting them up–by translating them into media well enough to con-
vey the moments transparently.

This is hard. Mostly I’ve failed. The challenge of filming and editing a story circle has
many interrelated pieces to it. You want to be able to record what is said without in-
fluencing it, so you must be unobtrusive enough for participants to ignore you. Le
most efficient and effective way to capture footage of people telling their truth is by
putting the camera right in front of them. But that would place you, the filmmaker,
somewhere inside the circle, blocking people from seeing and being seen. Obviously,
this is a bad idea if you want to be ignored. Plutôt, it’s best to stand outside the circle
and shoot across to the other side. But what if people unexpectedly begin talking when
you are right behind them? You need a second camera operator on the other side of the
circle. Now you are in the frame, so the footage will often show the filmmakers. That’s
fine. There’s nothing to hide, but it can be startling for those watching the film. It of-
ten feels as though you are never filming from quite the right angle. It’s better toward
the beginning of the event, when one speaker gives way to another in a relatively or-
derly way. But later, when the discussion begins to generate itself and heats up, every-
thing becomes unpredictable.

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151 (3) Summer 2022Meringolo, Boot, Griffin Johnson & O’Neill

And then there’s the audio recording. To get good sound, mics should be as close to the
source as possible. It would be best to “wire” everyone–ten, twenty, or thirty people
with their own microphones, but very few budgets can pull that off. (Did I mention
that there is likely no budget at all?) Plutôt, we mount “shotgun” mics to the camer-
comme, and have a third person “boom” the speaker (hold a mic near them on a pole) mais
these methods pick up lots of background sound–particularly in the places where sto-
ry circles happen: community gathering places; not sound stages.

Toujours, despite the challenges, there is something unusually compelling about the circular
format and the passion it calls forth that I believe will work in film. I like that it’s easy
to lose a sense of the geography of the scene, and get caught in the swirl–getting ping-
ponged back and forth and having to anchor yourself in nothing but the truths people tell.

Like Denise Griffin Johnson, Lee Boot approaches his work through the lens of
art and culture. He captures a truth that might otherwise be overlooked or invisi-
ble in more formal public humanities practice.

M easuring the success of community-centered public history can be

tricky. There may be no peer-reviewed publication, scholarly acco-
lades, or public product. In many cases, the process is the product, être-
cause the goals are to build an intellectual community that cuts across institution-
al and demographic boundaries and to ensure that knowledge gained is not ex-
tracted from participants. Our project came without strings. Students were not
required to upload oral histories or projects to Preserve the Baltimore Uprising,
though some did. Story circle participants did not have to sign consent to be re-
corded, though they all did.

We measure our success in more subtle ways. Students became more confi-
dent in their own knowledge. Museum professionals allowed their best practices
to shift. Through dialogue came mutual respect.

We hosted two public events. In April 2019, students and teachers from all three
participating schools assembled at the Maryland Historical Society along with lo-
cal residents who had participated in story circles and with staff of the Maryland
Historical Society. On October 26, 2019, local people who had participated in the
story circle project assembled at the Arch Social Club for a film screening. In both
les espaces, we discussed the importance of recording these experiences, and we ac-
knowledged deep fissures that remain both within the West Baltimore communi-
ty and in the city at large. We are hopeful because community-centered public his-
tory practice can begin to bridge those fissures, and many groups and individuals
are committed to that work.20

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Dédale, le Journal de l'Académie américaine des arts & SciencesCreating Knowledge with the Public

about the authors

Denise D. Meringolo is Associate Professor of History and Director of Public His-
tory at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is the creator of the Pre-
serve the Baltimore Uprising archive project, the author of Museums, Monuments, et
National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History (2012), and the editor of Radi-
cal Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism (2021).

Lee Boot is Affiliate Associate Professor of Visual Arts, Computer Science and En-
gineering, and Language, Literacy and Culture, and Director of the Imaging Re-
search Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His feature film,
Euphoria, won the Gold Award for Documentary at the Houston International Film
Festival in 2005.

Denise Griffin Johnson is Cofounder of CultureWorks Baltimore, Director of the
Arch Social Community Network, and a Culture Agent with the U.S. Département de
Arts and Culture. She has collaborated with Alternate ROOTS and Roadside Theater
as well as the higher education consortium Imagining America.

Maureen O’Neill is a Library Media Specialist and Film Teacher at the Baltimore
Polytechnic Institute. She is also Coordinator of Poly’s National History Day pro-
gram and was named Baltimore City History Day Teacher of the Year in 2015.

endnotes

1 See Elizabeth Pente, Paul Ward, Milton Brown, and Hardeep Sahota, “The Co-Production
of Historical Knowledge: Implications for the History of Identities,” Identity Papers: UN
Journal of British and Irish Studies 1 (1) (2015): 32–52; and Matthew Hiebert, Simone Läs-
eux-mêmes, and Trevor Muñoz, conveners, “Creating Historical Knowledge Socially: New Ap-
proaches, Opportunities and Epistemological Implications of Undertaking Research
with Citizen Scholars,” conference, German Historical Institute of Washington, D.C.,
October 26–28, 2017.

2 Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar, “Meaningful Engagement in Research: Community Residents
as Co-Creators of Knowledge,” American Journal of Community Psychology 65 (3–4) (2020):
261–271.

3 Keith A. Erekson, Everybody’s History: Indiana’s Lincoln Inquiry and the Quest to Reclaim a Presi-

dent’s Past (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012).

4 Tom Crouch, “Some Thoughts on Public History and Social Responsibility,” Illinois Histor-

ical Journal 82 (3) (1989): 195–200.

5 Voir, Par exemple, Dan Kerr, “Hardball History: Knowing the People’s History Requires
Being on Their Side,” History@Work blog, Avril 15, 2015, https://ncph.org/history
-at-work/hardball-history-kerr/ (accessed July 18, 2015); and Cathy Stanton, “Hardball
Histoire: On the Edge of Politics, Advocacy, and Activism,” History@Work blog, Mars
21, 2015, https://ncph.org/history-at-work/hardball-history-stanton/ (accessed July
18, 2021). See also Denise Meringolo, éd., Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of
Social Justice Activism (Amherst, Mass.: Amherst College Press, 2021).

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151 (3) Summer 2022Meringolo, Boot, Griffin Johnson & O’Neill

6 Voir, Par exemple, La Tanya S. Autry and Mike Murawski, Museums Are Not Neutral,
https://www.museumsarenotneutral.com/ (accessed July 18, 2021); Steven D. Booth,
Tracy Drake, Raquel Flores-Clemons, et al., The Blackivists, https://www.theblack
ivists.com/ (accessed July 18, 2021); and Meredith Clark, Bergis Jules, and Trevor
Muñoz, Documenting the Now, https://www.docnow.io/ (accessed July 18, 2021).
7 See Lisa Mikesall, Elizabeth Bromley, and Dmitry Khodyakov, “Ethical Community-
Engaged Research: A Literature Review,” American Journal of Public Health 103 (e7–e14)
(2013), https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301605. See also the Journal of Community En-
gagement and Scholarship, especially Irena Gorski, Eric Obeysekare, Careen Yarnal, et
Khanjan Mehta, “Responsible Engagement: Building a Culture of Concern,” Journal of
Community Engagement and Scholarship 8 (2) (2015), https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia
.edu/jces/vol8/iss2/3; and Gregory Jay, “The Engaged Humanities: Principles and
Practices for Public Scholarship and Teaching,” Journal of Community Engagement and
Scholarship 3 (1) (2010), https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/jces/vol3/iss1/14.
8 Linda Poon and Marie Patino, “CityLab University: A Timeline of U.S. Police Protests,»
Bloomberg CityLab, updated August 28, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
articles/2020-06-09/a-history-of-protests-against-police-brutality (accessed July 10,
2021).

9 Black Lives Matter, “Herstory,” https://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/ (accessed July

10, 2021).

10 Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Baltimore Enlists National Guard and a Curfew to Fight Riots and
Looting,” The New York Times, Avril 27, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/
us/baltimore-freddie-gray.html (accessed July 29, 2021).

11 Tom Foreman, Jr.. and Amanda Lee Myers, “Riots in Baltimore Over Man’s Death in
Police Custody,” AP News, Avril 28, 2015, https://apnews.com/article/6a29a1d3cee842
aa8cd3577f83e7a49e (accessed July 29, 2021).

12 Ryan Sharrow, “Rawlings-Blake Issues Citywide Curfew, Calls Rioters ‘Thugs,’” Balti-
more Business Journal, Avril 27, 2015, updated April 28, 2015, https://www.bizjournals
.com/baltimore/news/2015/04/27/rawlings-blake-issues-citywide-curfew-calls.html
(accessed July 29, 2015).

13 Eric Bradner, “Obama: ‘No Excuse for Violence in Baltimore,’” CNN Politics, Avril 28,
2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/28/politics/obama-baltimore-violent-protests/
index.html (accessed July 29, 2021).

14 Sharrow, “Rawlings-Blake Issues Citywide Curfew, Calls Rioters ‘Thugs.’”
15 Freeman Hrabowski III, Philip J. Rouse, and Peter H. Henderson, The Empowered University:
Shared Leadership, Culture Change, and Academic Success (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins
Presse universitaire, 2019), 106. See also “Freeman A. Hrabowski, III,” UMBC Office of the
President, https://president.umbc.edu/ (accessed July 31, 2021); and Alison Knezevich,
“‘A Powerful and Frightening Experience’: UMBC’s Hrabowski Recalls King’s Call for the
Children’s Crusade of 1963,” The Baltimore Sun, Janvier 15, 2018, https://www.baltimoresun
.com/education/bs-md-co-hrabowski-mlk-20180112-story.html (accessed July 31, 2021).
16 Voir, Par exemple, Max Cole, “UMBC Students Produce Radio Series ‘The World That
Brought Us Freddie Gray,’” UMBC News, Juin 3, 2016, https://news.umbc.edu/umbc
-students-amplify-the-voices-of-baltimore-residents-affected-by-the-death-of-freddie
-gray-through-powerful-radio-series/ (accessed July 31, 2021); David Hoffman, “Ad-
dressing Social Inequalities in Fall Courses,” Breaking Ground, Août 3, 2015, https://

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umbcbreakingground.wordpress.com/tag/freddie-gray/ (accessed July 31, 2021); et
John Rennie Short, “There Are More Baltimores: America’s Legacy of Hollowed-Out
Cities,” The Conversation, May 15, 2015, https://theconversation.com/there-are-more
-baltimores-americas-legacy-of-hollowed-out-cities-41734.

17 Denise Meringolo, “Preserve the Baltimore Uprising: Application to the Whiting Foun-
dation Public Engagement Fellowship Program,” October 15, 2017. See also Jessica I.
Elfenbein, Thomas Hollowak, and Elizabeth M. Nix, éd., Baltimore ’68: Riots and Rebirth
in an American City (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011); and “Baltimore ’68
Riots and Rebirth,” http://archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/ (accessed July 31, 2021).

18 The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture is a grassroots action network. For more infor-

mation, see https://usdac.us/ (accessed September 19, 2021).

19 Denise Griffin and UMBC IRC, “MICA Place Story Circle,” Preserve the Baltimore Up-
rising, Janvier 9, 2020, https://baltimoreuprising2015.org/items/show/10638; Denise
Griffin and UMBC IRC, “Community Context: A Conversation on the Consent Decree,»
Preserve the Baltimore Uprising, Janvier 16, 2020, https://baltimoreuprising2015.org/
items/show/10639; Denise Griffin and UMBC IRC, “Community Context: A Conversa-
tion with Margaret Powell,” Preserve the Baltimore Uprising, Octobre 8, 2019, https://
baltimoreuprising2015.org/items/show/10640; and Denise Griffin and UMBC IRC,
“Community Context: An Arch Social Club Conversation,” Preserve the Baltimore Up-
rising, Octobre 24, 2019, https://baltimoreuprising2015.org/items/show/10637.

20 Voir, Par exemple, P.. Nicole King, Baltimore Traces Project, https://preservingplaces
.wordpress.com/ (accessed August 2, 2021); Tania Lizarazo, Moving Stories: Latinas en
Baltimore, https://latinasinbaltimore.org/ (accessed August 2, 2021); and Baltimore
Field School, https://baltimorefieldschool.org/ (accessed August 2, 2021).

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