Mott Haven History Keepers

Investing in grassroots public humanities infrastructure in the South Bronx.

History-making work in the South Bronx’s Mott Haven is hidden in plain sight. In community gardens, workplaces, church basements, barber shops, hair salons, and senior centers, on stoops and sidewalks, countless informal historians—or history keepers—keep scrapbooks, tell stories, and teach young people.

The stories these history keepers hold are as varied as the history of Mott Haven itself: stories of resilience in the face of fires that burned through the neighborhood in the 1970s and 80s; of HIV and AIDS; of Covid-19; of the neighborhood’s global impact on music and art; of organizing community-controlled healthcare; of developing co-operative housing; and of connectedness, creativity, and community.

Mott Haven History Keepers aims to support existing history keepers working outside of humanities institutions, expanding what counts as humanities work and who counts as humanities workers. In practice, this project will involve identifying five Mott Haven history keepers, pairing each with an apprentice, and connecting them with intellectual, financial, and archival resources.

Directed by Amy Starecheski, Mott Haven History Keepers is a partnership between Incite and The Bronx County Historical Society (BCHS). Starecheski is a fourth-generation South Bronx resident, director of our Oral History Master of Arts (OHMA) program, past president of the Oral History Association, and co-PI on the NEH-funded, “Diversifying Oral History Practice: A Fellowship Program for Under/Unemployed Oral Historian”. Mott Haven History Keepers builds on Starecheski’s efforts to develop models for non-extractive, fairly compensated, community-led history-making work.

Incite and BCHS will work directly with the chosen history keepers to develop training and support that centers their needs and priorities. As desired, Incite and BCHS will also connect fellows with other New York City institutions that could offer pathways to future partnerships. This collaborative work will yield several new public resources, including new collections, finding aids, oral histories, and training opportunities.

BCHS will provide training to fellows and apprentices, as well as the opportunity to archive oral histories and personal collections in the Bronx County Archives. Training will be provided by Pastor Crespo, Jr., research librarian and archivist at BCHS, and Steven Payne, Director of BCHS, founder of the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project, and oral historian for the Bronx African American History Project and other projects

This project is made possible by a $150K grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

As Incite invests in developing new modes of collaboration that integrate and value expertise from outside the academy, we are energized by the opportunity to support Mott Haven History Keepers. Not only will the project deepen and diversify the nation’s cultural and historical record, it will make conceptual and practical contributions to our understanding of collaborative research models.