Center for Mason Legacies

Honoring Native American Heritage Month with the Native American and Indigenous Alliance

Jeannine Harvey — Sun, 19 Nov 2023 13:17:44 +0000

Honoring Native American Heritage Month with the Native American and Indigenous Alliance Jeannine Harvey Sun, 11/19/2023 - 08:17

^{In 1990, a joint resolution designated November as Native American Heritage Month (NAHM), nationally recognizing what had previously been state-designated holidays. Throughout the month, Americans are encouraged to recognize and uplift the innumerable contributions, both past and present, of Indigenous people.}

��AV’s student organization Native American and Indigenous Alliance (NAIA) is dedicated to promoting Indigenous culture, raising awareness of Native issues, and providing a safe environment for Native and non-Native students. We spoke with members of NAIA to hear about how they’ve found community here at Mason and their perspectives on the importance of NAHM.

"To me, my indigenous heritage means resilience. The Taíno were the first peoples encountered by Europeans and thus the first people that were assumed to be devastated and completely annihilated. Yet at the end of the day, we still exist in various different forms. We still exist."

Richard Lopez-Perez
Puerto Rican of Taíno descent
BA in Foreign Languages, concentration in Korean

"For me, my indigenous heritage is all-encompassing. Ever since I was a kid, up until now, it's something that I've, you know, constantly been raised in and educated under. It provides a sense of community, a sense of family. Coming to Mason really helped me expand upon my sense of pride and who I am. And it gave me a greater sense of family and belonging."

Justin Gray
Piscataway and Rappahannock tribes
BS in Information Technology

"Through the Native American and Indigenous Alliance at Mason, I discovered that being indigenous can have many meanings. I was taken aback to see that I wasn't alone, and that there are other people in my similar situation who are also trying to reconnect back to their roots. As an immigrant at a young age, the alliance has helped me find community on campus, as well as further connected me to my ancestors in Peru."

Macarena De La Cruz Velasquez
Peruvian
BA in Criminology, Law and Society

"Native American Heritage Month is a time to give a voice to people that are normally voiceless. We need to listen to the indigenous community at all times, of course, but this is a time where the general public can publicly platform Indigenous people, Indigenous students, activists, artists, all of it. I think that’s why it’s a very important time of the year."

Ozcollo Espinoza
Quechua Nation; Chichimeca, and Karankawa Kadla tribes
BA in Anthropology

The importance of Native American Heritage Month is that it’s a time for us to really uplift the native community. And that isn't specific to North American natives: there's the indigenous populations in South America, Europe, Africa, and all around. This month is about uplifting all those voices. We’re here to teach people that we're not some fairy tale in a textbook: We're still here. We're present. We're a lot closer to you than what you might think. We're still here, and we're so strong.

Sara Jefferson
Chickahominy Indian Tribe of Virginia
BA in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, concentration on interpersonal dynamics

You can view the full video on our Instagram: @georgemasonu

Uplifting Indigenous voices at Mason

Public history students highlight local Indigenous communities
November 20, 2024
George Mason researchers receive NEH funding for Connecting Threads project
November 20, 2024
Counseling graduate student awarded fine arts fellowship
June 11, 2024
Mason doctoral student uses archival practice to unfold the present
December 4, 2023
Honoring Native American Heritage Month with the Native American and Indigenous Alliance
November 19, 2023

Mason alum Kelli Jo Ford gives voice to generations of Native American women

Named to Oprah Magazine’s list of Native American Authors to Read Right Now in 2020, Mason alum Kelli Jo Ford, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the author of Crooked Hallelujah, a “novel-in-stories that follows four generations of Cherokee women as they travel farther from their native Oklahoma.” Learn more about her.

Topics

Students

Campus News

Native American Indigenous Alliance

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Center for Mason Legacies

Native American

Mason Libraries announces LYRASIS Catalyst Fund Grant for Center for Mason Legacies

Colleen Rich — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 19:13:02 +0000

Mason Libraries announces LYRASIS Catalyst Fund Grant for Center for Mason Legacies Colleen Rich Mon, 07/18/2022 - 15:13

Fenwick Library. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

A $39,500 grant from LYRASIS will advance an interdisciplinary project based in the George Mason University Libraries and College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The winning proposal, “Geographies of Inequity: Exploring the Hidden Lives Next Door,” draws on the Center for Mason Legacies’s Black Lives Next Door project, which was launched in 2021 with support fro the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR), and Mason researchers George Oberle, LaNitra Berger, Benedict Carton, and Wendi Manuel-Scott.

Two other center projects—the Enslaved Children of George Mason, an undergraduate research initiative which started in 2016, and Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial, a work of public history recently unveiled on the Fairfax Campus—have been instrumental in shaping “Geographies of Inequity.”

“The Center for Mason Legacies will use the LYRASIS grant to create an interdisciplinary social justice methodology that incorporates digital humanities and historical research in local communities and fully engages our students in valuable transformative work,” said Manuel-Scott, associate director of the center and professor of integrative studies and history.

LYRASIS is a nonprofit member organization serving and supporting libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage organizations around the world.

The “Geographies of Inequity” project has also received the LYRASIS Catalyst Fund’s Sandy Nyberg Award, which recognizes “the highest levels of innovation” in publishing, writing, preservation, and other categories. The fund provides support for new ideas and innovative projects from the LYRASIS membership, with a goal to “expand opportunities to explore, test, refine, and collaborate on innovations with potential for community-wide impact.”

“The collaborative and creative energy that materializes when faculty and librarians work together results in substantative educational experiences for students,” said John Zenelis, dean of the University Libraries.

The 2021-22 Catalyst Fund grant competition was international in scope, with finalists including Cambridge University, University of Virginia, Université du Québec à Montréal, and University of North Carolina System.

Topics

University Libraries

Center for Mason Legacies

Research

Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial to be dedicated

Colleen Rich — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 16:08:11 +0000

Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial to be dedicated Colleen Rich Mon, 03/28/2022 - 12:08

It was the summer of 2017, and five ��AV students and three faculty members were beginning their research into the children enslaved by George Mason IV, the university’s namesake.

Wendi Manuel-Scott, a professor of integrative studies and history, and one of the faculty members on the project, recalled how the students at one point “began to talk about how it would be awesome if years from now they came to campus and there’s a plaque that honors the enslaved people held by George Mason.”

As it turned out, they got much more than a plaque, as what was the Enslaved Children of George Mason project led to the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial, a focal point of how the university is addressing its identity as it relates to a complicated Patriot.

“The purpose of the project was to raise awareness about George Mason IV, the man, the patriot and the slaveholder,” Manuel-Scott said. “Our goal was to focus on expanding our community’s understanding of Mason, and to focus on the people he owned and what they thought about freedom.”

The memorial on the Fairfax Campus (see the video) is the centerpiece of the newly renovated Wilkins Plaza, named for the African American civil rights leader, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and beloved Mason professor.

One panel is dedicated to to Penny, an enslaved girl given by Mason to his daughter. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

It will be dedicated at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, April 4, as part of the university’s 50th anniversary celebration.

“I started that project the summer after my sophomore year, and it sounded cool to have research that maybe would contribute to a memorial on campus," said Mason alum Kye Farrow, BA History ’19, MS Management ’20. "But it was really difficult at the time to see how it would get there. So, yes, still today, I'm absolutely amazed the work we did went to the product that's there today."

Other students on the project were Alexis Bracey, BA Global Affairs ’19; Ayman Fatima, BS Systems Engineering, BA Government and International Politics ’21; Farhaj Murshed, BS Statistics ’20; and Elizabeth Perez-Garcia, BS Criminology, Law, and Society ’19.

It was important each student came from a different academic discipline, Manuel-Scott said.

“Each brought a different way of seeing and thinking, and a different way to analyze and explore records,” she said. “That interdisciplinarity created a richness in terms of the project.”

Mason faculty Gabrielle Tayac and Wendi Manuel-Scott gather water from the Potomac River to use in the fountain on Wilkins Plaza. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

The project was launched by Manuel-Scott; Benedict Carton, a faculty member in History and Art History; and Mason alum George Oberle, Mason’s history librarian and a term faculty member in the Department of History and Art History.

All are leaders in the Center for Mason Legacies, an interdisciplinary and collaborative research center established by the University Library and College of Humanities and Social Sciences that encourages student research to preserve and examine the legacy of George Mason IV and the people he enslaved.

The Enslaved People of George Mason project “shows that Mason is striving to be an exemplar institution in relation to the idea of promoting student inquiry and being open to where that goes and takes us, even if it’s not always a happy story,” Oberle said.

The memorial includes the iconic statue of Mason. A new pedestal includes four quotes which highlight the different aspects of his life, including the penning of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the foundation of the U.S. Bill of Rights. But Mason also enslaved more than 100 people at his Gunston Hall plantation and did not free any upon his death.

Memorial panels are also dedicated to Penny, an enslaved child given by Mason to his daughter, and James, Mason’s personal attendant. A fountain contains stones in a pattern that symbolize an African custom of gathering and prayer.

To acknowledge an altar that was constructed next to the Potomac River by the enslaved at Gunston Hall, and to acknowledge that the land on which the university was built was originally inhabited by indigenous people, water from the Potomac River will be poured into the fountain.

“It’s a way to interconnect the worlds, between the place of enslavement, the place of difficulty, but also a place that’s life-giving,” said Gabrielle Tayac, an associate professor of public history at Mason, and a Piscataway tribal citizen. “To pour the water into the fountain that recalls those connections and all of those hopes and dreams and memories the people had, it’s a way of awakening and blending those intentions.”

Said Carton: “Our project sought to guide students’ sense of moral duty, as they branched out to discover hidden histories. This duty is focused on reconstructing the everyday humanity of enslaved people whose lives had deep meaning, despite the cruelties of enslavement.”

“The moral duty,” he said, “is in the learning.”

Topics

Campus News

Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial

Masonat50

Center for Mason Legacies

Wilkins Plaza

Campus Improvements (Construction)

diversity

DEI

Mason students documenting the history of Black life at Mason and in the local community

Colleen Rich — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 15:14:09 +0000

Mason students documenting the history of Black life at Mason and in the local community Colleen Rich Mon, 02/21/2022 - 10:14

As part of an effort to research and record local history, ��AV graduate and undergraduate students, along with faculty, have begun documenting Black students who attended Mason and the Black communities that once existed in Fairfax County.

This fall, the Black Lives Next Door website went live with initial research exploring the early years of George Mason College and its transition to a university in 1972. The project, conducted under the auspices of the Center for Mason Legacies, is an ongoing interdisciplinary collaborative effort to highlight voices that history has suppressed.

“This project reflects what we believe, the importance of researching and understanding the past, the importance of showing just how messy history is,” said history librarian George Oberle III, director of the Center for Mason Legacies, assistant term professor and Mason alum. “What we’ve learned is that Mason, while one of the most diverse destinations of higher learning in the U.S., has a haunting past.”

Oberle, Benedict Carton, associate professor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and LaNitra M. Berger, associate director of the African and African American Studies Program and senior director of fellowships in the Office of Undergraduate Education, are the founders and primary supervisors of the Black Lives Next Door Project.

The website has a section titled Black Student Biographies, which includes individual stories of Black students in the early days of Mason and the struggles they faced. One biography describes Irma R. Willson’s battle in the 1960s for enrollment in the college and then to change the campus environment. Another section delves into racial ridicule at Mason. In addition, the website has a section describing the School Street neighborhood, a Black community that used to exist near Mason.

“I hope that the legacy of this project is that we recognize what happened in our history and highlight problems from Mason’s past and the community’s past that maybe people don’t want to recognize but should for the sake of recognizing and honoring the erased Black history of Fairfax,” said Veronica Mata, a senior majoring in government and international politics who participated in the research.

The project was inspired by a New York Times opinion piece “Black Lives Next Door” by legal scholar Richard Rothstein, who called for more studies of “comprehensive racial inequity” at the local level, said Berger.

“Now that Mason is turning 50, it’s a good opportunity to look backwards like this and embrace the past, both the good and the bad, as part of the discussion of what Mason will like going forward,” said Berger.

Over the summer, six undergraduate students, two doctoral candidates and faculty members examined the early years of George Mason College, the institutional predecessor to Mason. The group, which received funding through the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities and Research (OSCAR), attended a two-week research seminar and then probed into primary source material to answer questions about how segregation affected the college and its community and what happened to the Black communities that were once part of the Northern Virginia landscape. Speakers, including Marcia Chatelain, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Georgetown University historian, helped hone the students’ research skills and inspire them in their work. Rothstein also spoke to the students in the fall after the site was published.

Anne Dobberteen, a doctoral candidate in history and a digital humanities graduate research assistant, was one of two graduate students working over the summer to help guide the undergraduate students in their research. She found particularly interesting how few Black students attended Mason as recently as the early 1970s and how far they had to commute to attend.

“Black students were dispersed throughout the region at that time,” Dobberteen said. “It was still a very white college at that time.”

Honors College senior Kyler B. Buckner’s research led him to former Mason professor Robert Houston, considered a “revolutionary” by Mason College administration in the late 1960s for protesting the Vietnam War and running teach-ins on societal racism.

“It was the 1960s and Virginia, so I expected to learn there was racism,” said Buckner, a sociology major. “What was unexpected was finding that there were people trying to do something about it, resisting.”

Berger hopes that the work Mason is doing inspires other colleges and universities to similarly research the hidden lives and suppressed voices within their own communities. As part of that effort, Berger and others have started a social media campaign: #blacklivesnextdoor.

Meanwhile, said Berger, research at Mason is ongoing, and they are always seeking sources of funding.

“I’m so proud of these students and what they’ve accomplished with their high-quality work,” Berger said. “It’s rewarding to watch students get so excited about learning and conducting research of consequence.”

Topics

Students

Research

Center for Mason Legacies

Masonat50

Black Lives Next Door

Black African Heritage

Spirit Fall 22

Mason librarian receives national I Love My Librarian Award

Colleen Rich — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 18:55:20 +0000

Mason librarian receives national I Love My Librarian Award Colleen Rich Tue, 01/11/2022 - 13:55

George D. Oberle. Photo provided

��AV history librarian and alum George D. Oberle, BA History ’96, MA ’99, PhD ’16, is a winner of this year’s I Love My Librarian Award.

The director of the Center for Mason Legacies and an assistant term professor, Oberle is being recognized by the American Library Association (ALA) for his amplification of historically underrepresented voices and the dedication he brings to uncovering and teaching about hidden histories. He is one of 10 librarians selected for this recognition from more than 1,300 nominations from library users across the country.

"After reading the nominations, I am frankly overwhelmed," said Oberle about the award. "The letters are so moving to read, and I feel so lucky to be able to work with so many wonderful people in a place where I received (most of) my degrees. I am still taking it all in."

Applying his dedicated scholarship in history and his commitment to social justice, Oberle has transformed his campus community and its understanding of Mason’s and its namesake’s racial history through his work establishing and leading the Center for Mason Legacies, an interdisciplinary and collaborative research center housed in the university’s Fenwick Library that seeks to preserve and examine the legacy of George Mason IV, his ancestors and heirs, and the people he enslaved.

“Based on the testimonials we received in support of George’s nomination for this award, it is a truly apt recognition; his students and his colleagues—both in CHSS and in Fenwick Library—really do LOVE their librarian!" said Ann Ardis, dean of Mason's College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS). "Through his generous, resourceful support to students and colleagues, and through his commitment to scholarly research, he has had an immeasurable impact at ��AV and to the community beyond. We are so proud to see his work recognized.”

Oberle’s work with the center has culminated in numerous educational resources for the Mason community, including a robust website with an array of primary source materials and a memorial recognizing the individuals enslaved by George Mason in the center of campus.

“Dr. Oberle’s work with the center is remarkably pointed and relevant to these times as he and the teamwork toward uncovering our hidden histories, expanding our historical record and knowledge of both the past and the present, documenting current racial tensions, and seeking a more just future,” wrote Dean of Libraries and University Librarian John Zenelis.

Zenelis continued: “He works directly in the spaces combating erasure and suppression and inspires students and faculty alike as he does so. In these efforts, he embodies not only the time-tested tradition and unique role of libraries in society as knowledge-preservers, but also the knowledge-creation and discovery-learning traditions of research universities.”

“By his example and his accomplishments, George has shown that what starts as a small library project can indeed grow into an important asset supported by the entire university,” wrote Wally Grotophorst, Mason's associate university librarian for digital strategies and systems.

Oberle and this year’s nine other honorees will each receive a $5,000 cash prize, a $750 donation to their library, and complimentary registration to ALA’s LibLearnX. The virtual award ceremony will take place during the conference at 3:30 p.m. CT on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022, and will be available to stream live on ALA's YouTube channel.

Since the award’s inception in 2008, library users have shared more than 20,000 nominations detailing how librarians have gone above and beyond to promote literacy, expand access to technology and support diversity and inclusion in their communities. Information regarding previous award winners can be found on the I Love My Librarian website.

Carnegie Corporation of New York generously sponsors the award. The New York Public Library also supports the award. ALA administers the award through its Communications and Marketing Office, which promotes the value of libraries and librarians. 

Topics

Faculty and Staff News

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

University Libraries

Center for Mason Legacies

Alumni

Viewing the impact of ��AV through the lens of its namesake’s legacy

Colleen Rich — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 14:53:22 +0000

Viewing the impact of ��AV through the lens of its namesake’s legacy Colleen Rich Mon, 06/28/2021 - 10:53

President Gregory Washington spoke about Mason's legacy at a Town of Vienna Liberty Amendments Month event.

The “complicated” life of George Mason IV ties directly to ��AV’s “profound” standing today as Virginia’s largest and most diverse public university, Mason President Gregory Washington said Thursday at a Town of Vienna Liberty Amendments Month event that celebrated constitutional freedoms.

Washington noted in his talk at the Vienna Community Center that Mason the man insisted on individual rights being built into the framework of the country’s founding but at the same time enslaved an estimated 128 people on his Gunston Hall plantation. Mason freed none of his slaves upon his death in 1792.

Those conflicting principles in recent years have led to a greater contextualization of the school’s namesake by students, faculty and leadership to present all sides of his complex legacy.

“Without the Bill of Rights, you can’t have the 13th, the 14th, the 15th and the 19th amendments because there would not be a process,” Washington said to the estimated 50 audience members “So while [Mason] did not facilitate the release of his slaves, the mechanism of the Bill of Rights, which he is credited with establishing, actually freed them.”

Introduced at the livestreamed (Washington remarks begin at 23:00) event by Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Keam, Washington devoted most of his 18-minute presentation to the impact of the university, which he deemed “a gem in your community.” He highlighted Mason’s majority-minority enrollment, with no racial or ethnic group comprising more than 40% of the student body and with no marked disparity in degree attainment among groups.

“You can’t find another institution in Virginia with that performance,” Washington said. “You can’t find another institution in the DMV with that performance. And you’d be hard-pressed to find another institution in the country with that level of performance.

“So when I say the institution is profound and special, it indeed is. What’s happening on that campus is not happening virtually anywhere else in the country.”

A related panel discussion that followed featured a presentation from George Oberle III, director of the Center for Mason Legacies and professor in the Department of History and Art History in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Joining Oberle on the panel were Vienna Councilman Chuck Anderson and Virginia Del. Ken Plum.