Hi beloveds,
I hope this message finds you well or at least well enough. March was a busy month so I thought it would be great to spend April telling you about one of the many activities of the Resource Center. A few weeks ago some of our staffers had the joy of gathering with alumni of Duke Divinity School for “Telling Our Stories: Blessings and Trials” at the Avila Retreat Center. This time of both reunion and retreat was envisioned by alumni of the Divinity School and former coordinators of the DDS Women’s Center; Nancy Rosebaugh, Betty Wolfe, and our RCWMS Executive Director Jeanette Stokes. The hope was to create a space to honor the significance of the Center turning 50 years old, to allow for reconnection with old friends and classmates, and to give room for pause and reflection on the grounds provided to us by Peace Hill at Avila.
There was also a serious call from the organizers to begin the process of archiving the stories of these women who had led in local churches, in nonprofit organizations, in the healthcare sector and in institutions of higher learning. As we sat together, my mind began to think about the passage from the Revelation 12:11, “and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” I will not attempt to exegete this passage but what I will name is that this passage always makes me believe that sometimes oppression can have such a powerful arc on our lives because we have so few resources, so few outlets, and so few avenues to hear the stories of those who resisted sexism, patriarchy, racism, homophobia, and all other isms. For people who are on the underside of power, documenting their own histories, sharing their own narratives, and telling their stories is a powerful tool to fuel the flames of justice so that the next generation can have roadmaps, guideposts, and models as they continue in the work.
How the purpose of our gathering intersected with the larger climate of our society was not lost on me as I walked the grounds of Avila. On March 13th the American Historical Society and the Organization of American Historians released a joint statement condemning “recent efforts to censor historical content on federal government websites, at many public museums, and across a wide swath of government resources that include essential data.”[1] On March 5th many of us affiliated with the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice received word that the federal government had disabled at least one webpage and scrubbed the language related to Rev. Dr. Pauli’s transgender and queer identities on the National Park Service’s website. On March 19th the Department of Defense restored a story on its website highlighting athlete Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier on the baseball field after serving as a second lieutenant in the US military during World War II. This story had disappeared from the website, either mistakenly or intentionally taken down in what appears to be a purge of historical material related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In light of all that is happening right now with detainments of those who are fighting for the rights of our Palestinian neighbors, the dismantling of the Department of Education, the defunding of public health grants, and the ending of a ceasefire in Gaza (it’s all a lot), I know that working to preserve the places of Black and indigenous folks, queer folks, and women and femme identified folk in our institutional spaces can seem a bit trivial. But gathering with these women at Avila reminded me why preserving history matters. Aspects of the Duke Divinity culture that felt so normal and commonplace during my time there, such as the use of inclusive language and the inclusion of the contribution of women in the curriculum by male professors, did not come without struggle. I’m tempted to believe that the powers that be within the institution benefitted from my assumption. With no deep education about how former students organized for change before me, I often assumed that what I was given as a Black woman navigating those hallowed halls was all I could ask for. Had I had access to these stories ten years ago, who knows what kind of possibilities I could have imagined for myself and my colleagues of marginal identities. My younger relative Bacarri has taught me that often archived stories and oral histories can become roadmaps, guideposts, and lanterns for resistance movements and change makers. As we think about the state of higher education today, we don’t just need to hear the white-washed and cleaned-up stories of the deans, the presidents, and the award-winning professors, but we need to learn from the grassroots advocacy efforts of the students and the staff who continue to fight for policies, practices, and cultures that will impact the spaces we navigate for the years to come.
One of my commitments as we move through the Christian season of Lent is to spend less and buy more pre-owned goods rather than new items to promote a more sustainable way of being. This has meant spending more time browsing in vintage shops. One that I love is a Black-owned shop in East Durham. When I visit, I often see many family heirlooms that are soon to become prized possessions of local college students seeking to buy what their classmates cannot replicate. While it takes a lot of digging to curate a style that cannot be copied, the one thing that cannot be replicated or duplicated is the authenticity of our stories. The Resource Center will be collecting the stories of those who were affiliated with the Women’s Center or women alumni of Duke Divinity through the end of April 2025. If there is something that you would like to share about the impact of a professor or staff member, a favorite program or event sponsored by the Women’s Center, or even a favorite memory with a classmate or colleague from your time as a student, we would love to hear from you and we would be honored to ensure that your story is archived for the years to come. For more information on that process, you can reach out to Nancy Rosebaugh at nrosebaugh@hotmail.com.
[1] “AHA-OAH Joint Statement on Federal Censorship of American History,” American Historical Association, March 13th 2025, https://www.historians.org/news/aha-oah-joint-statement-on-federal-censorship-of-american-history/
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