An image depicting a new story including a photo of several people gathered in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston. Headline states: "50 years after Inner Belt protest, activists gather again"

Learning from the past,
building actions for the future.

Photo of the proposed highway plan for Boston from the 1960s overlayed on a map of the current landscape and streets of the Boston area, showing how despite the highway not existing, development still followed the same proposed pathways.
An archival photo of protest materials with the sign "Beat the Belt"

The Call to Action

A vanguard generation of progressive activists is approaching advanced age just as many of their 1960s era defining battles are taking on renewed political urgency. These actors link a vital web of fight genealogies filled with strategies, values, lessons, memories and cautions largely unknown to current and emerging activist communities. 

Preserving and growing activist networks require an intentional effort to prioritize the social relationships and knowledge-building work that anchor their missions across time and space.

Existing institutional archives offer interesting but limited opportunities to investigate the stories and actors of the near political past. This data intervention galvanizes a coalition of activists, residents, archivists, students and local leaders to source a new archive of activist histories, hacks and stories that trace their beginnings to multiple land fights rooted in the civil rights, anti-war, student, women’s and counterculture movements of the 1960s.

The Problem

  • Epistemological hierarchy and social exclusions inherent to the Archive. Ephemera.

  • Social networks and cross-generational knowledge sharing practices pulled apart as a consequence of land-based displacement, dispersals and migrations & wealth extraction

  • Archive as a site of containment, erasure, exclusion, violence and opportunity for progressive activist histories and actors

  • Archive’s inaccessibility to broad audiences committed to preserving and sharing activists stories

The 50th Anniversary Event

A group of people meeting in from of the Massachusetts State House gates in celebration.
Photos of archival images clipped up to string inside the MA State House.
Three people gathered for a photo inside the Massachusetts State House, including Dr. Karilyn Crockett
A group of people posing for a photo in front of a grand staircase inside of the Massachusetts State House.
A photo of pieces of paper clipped up to a string. The paper says "Good people with conviction and love for the common good, when working together, can fight bad ideas and protect a future of social justice."

Photos by Georden West.