GREENSBORO –– Bennett College’s Carnegie Negro Library will house the archives of the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project and its investigative arm, the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, officials with the college and commission announced Wednesday.
Bennett’s proposal to preserve the thousands of documents –– including papers, audio files, photographs and video footage –– beat out offers from UNCG and N.C. A&T.
Bennett College President Johnnetta Cole said it was “profoundly significant” for Greensboro’s smallest college to house the archives.
“We will be responsible for making available to ... students of the world, faculty of the world, scholars of the world, citizens of the world these materials,” Cole said. “We’ll be responsible for doing this from the day these materials come onto this campus until forever more. That is the nature of having an archival holding.”
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Since 2004, the commission has examined the consequences and causes of the shootings on Nov. 3, 1979, that killed five participants of the Communist Workers Party’s anti-Klan rally in Greensboro. The commission’s final report will be released in April. Bennett will receive the archives the same month, said Claudette Williams, the college’s executive vice president.
Cole said Bennett’s ties to the events of that day may have given the college an edge. Sandra Neely Smith, one of the shooting victims, was a 1973 Bennett graduate and former student body president. The co-chairwoman of the commission, Cynthia Brown, is a Bennett alumna.
“We want to admit fully –– proudly –– that we do have these two very special relationships with the work of the commission,” Cole said Wednesday at a news conference.
Jill Williams, the executive director of the commission, said Bennett ’s commitment to making the archives a centerpiece of the library helped make it the strongest proposal.
The college is initially raising $350,000 to prepare the library for the collection .
There are 3,000 colleges and universities in the nation, and all of them strive to set themselves apart from their peers, Cole said.
“As of today, we are the only college or university in the world that can say it houses the archives of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Truth and Community Reconciliation Project of Greensboro,” she said.
“It is quite a distinction. It is an enormous honor.
“We humbly accept these archives.”
Contact Lanita Withers at
373-7071 or lwithers
@news-record.com
