Action plan to integrate anti-racist efforts in everyday work

We condemn the systemic racism resulting in racist violence against Black people and other People of Color. As keepers of the historical record, we recognize the damage of white supremacist values, the myth of neutrality of archives and special collections, and our responsibility in revising and augmenting the record to amplify the voices of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and other oppressed populations. We need to change the systemic professional and institutional practices that put Black memory and experiences at the extreme margins, while removing barriers for Black memory workers to work in the profession. To accomplish this, we will increase our efforts in at least three areas:

1. We will support more thorough documentation of Black experiences, through institutional collecting and support of community archiving, to work ethically and non-exploitatively toward a more complete historical record. We'll effect this change through building relationships with Black-focused professional groups, student groups, faculty, and alumni, as well as the communities they support in their healthcare work.
2. We will reveal evidence of racism against Black people throughout our collections and in the history of the school and communities it's served through the years up to the present. We will work with our users to encourage active interrogation of the historical record, exposing the silences, gaps, and biases of racist documentation.
3. We will advocate within the profession widely, locally, and institutionally to actively pursue practices, policies, and programs that increase the representation of Black people in the profession.

While these are ongoing efforts, we will be accountable by working with groups such as Drexel Anti-Racism Task Force, Drexel College of Medicine Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Archives for Black Lives Matter Philly (A4BLiP), and the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL), and sharing periodic updates on our efforts/work. We value and welcome community input throughout this process: com_archives@drexel.edu.