Located on the third floor of the John B. Cade Library lies a treasure trove of Southern University’s legacy, the University Archives. With shelves filled with yearbooks, awards, photographs, and decades of memories, the archives are more than a storage space. They are a living, breathing monument to untold stories, student milestones, and cultural impact. However, much of that history is at risk of being lost as delicate prints and photos begin to deteriorate with time.
On April 14-17, a dedicated team from Getty Images spent time on campus working side-by-side with Southern’s archives staff to help digitize and restore fragile photographs, some unseen for generations. The project, part of Getty’s HBCU Photo Archive Grant Program, aims to preserve and amplify the rich history held within Southern’s walls.
Angela Proctor, Southern’s archivist and digitalization librarian, has overseen the effort with an eye toward legacy and access.
“It’s a balance between the archivable side and the digitization side,” she explains, adding that Getty’s involvement has accelerated the progress of a once slow-moving mission. “We have probably close to 5,000 (archives) — and I’m just talking off the cuff — but only 1 percent of them have been digitized. The process is ongoing.”
Proctor emphasizes that these archives don’t just serve Southern’s students or staff — they answer to the public. When someone requests an image that hasn’t yet been digitized, the team is forced to navigate boxes and folders to fulfill it. Digitization, she says, changes everything.
The urgency of the work resonates with Olivia Locket, a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio, who is majoring in history. As a student intern in the archives, she sees firsthand how crucial this preservation effort is.
“This is important because it’s our history, it’s influential, it’s how we got to this point and how we are going to go beyond,” Locket says. “And it’s our legacy, and that has every right to be preserved. I strongly encourage people to get involved in historical preservation.”
Getty’s HBCU Photo Archive Grant Program, launched in 2021, currently supports nine historically Black institutions. Cassandra Illidge, vice president of global partnerships at Getty Images and executive director of the HBCU program, says the initiative grew from an awareness that content created by and about diverse communities, especially historic content, has long been underrepresented. The initiative aids HBCUs with the tools, resources, and technology to preserve their past.
“This is a special project because we hear stories directly from HBCUs,” Illidge explains, underscoring the support of the project’s two major funders, The Getty Family and Stand Together.
“It captures something in your heart, in your mind that’s incredible, and that’s where HBCUs have that opportunity to share the joy that they bring on campus to a global audience,” Illidge says. “This global reach shows that Black people and HBCUs accepted everyone who wanted to get an education at a time when they were denied, and these pictures show those narratives.”
Helping to bring those images to life is Adnet Global, a content creation and post-production house. Matt Flor, who works with Adnet, explains their crucial role in the restoration process.
“Their life inside Adnet is pretty short,” Flor says. “They are the medium between when it was scanned in at the school and when it ends up online available in the brand folder for the school or Getty Images.”
Flor notes that while scanning is the first step, it’s not enough.
“By nature, it’s going to pick up defects, fingerprints, scratches, dust, and rips,” he says. “If you want it to be universally used, you want it to be as clean as possible — and that’s what the post-production side is doing.”
Thanks to this collaboration, Southern University’s archives’ latest digital era efforts have been amplified in a space where the voices, achievements, and cultural fabric of generations are no longer buried in boxes, but where they can now be shared with the world.
To explore the Getty Images HBCU Collection and view Southern’s contributions, visit: https://www.gettyimages.com/corporate-responsibility/hbcu-partnership.
