The vast AFRO Archives capture icons of civil rights and everyday life

By Sheilah Kast,

Published January 15, 2024 at 11:35 AM EST

Every third Monday in January, we mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And every year, the generation of the Civil Rights Movement, its leaders and the everyday people who powered it, inch further and further into history.

The archives maintained by The AFRO American News are seeking to build a link to that history, by preserving the record of its past editions spanning all the way back to the paper's founding in 1892.

Alexis Taylor, managing editor of The AFRO American News, talks with us about the legacy news organizations and the history contained in its pages.

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Sheilah Kast

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.

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Melissa Gerr

Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'

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