Campus memorial artifacts to be preserved in University Archives

Black Lives Matther memorialGeorge Floyd and Black Lives Matter memorials at 13th Street and University Avenue and at 34th Street are being documented by a small, dedicated team led by Sarah Coates, University Archives Associate, and Stephanie Birch, African American Studies Librarian, at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida.

The team is photographically documenting the sites and collecting posters and memorabilia at the memorial site on 13th and University. They are working with UF Facilities to collect materials to preserve some of the artifacts without interfering with the protest sites. Several students are capturing social media posts from official UF accounts documenting the response to racial injustice and the work in progress toward an end to the situation. The team also hopes to document the larger community response to the movement.

The UF materials will become a part of the University Life collection in the University Archives. The University Life collection seeks to document the lived experience of UF’s faculty, students and staff during their time at the university. Collecting these materials from a pivotal point in UF’s history will allow University Archives to more fully tell the story of this university. Materials from the Gainesville response to this movement will be added to the Special and Area Studies Collections’ Archives and Manuscripts division.

The University Archives maintains official records that have legal, administrative, or historical value to UF.