Community Archives and Black Capitalism with Calvin Schermerhorn and Jessica Salow
Event description
- Academic events
- Free
- Open to the public
Join us for a conversation with Jessica Salow, Assistant Archivist of Black Collections at ASU Library and Calvin Schermerhorn, Professor of History in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at ASU.
Highlighting the stories of Phoenix-based civil rights leaders Lincoln and Eleanor Ragsdale, Schermerhorn will discuss the intersection of Black entrepreneurship, community organizing, and resistance to systemic wealth inequality in Arizona. Salow will introduce the recently established Black Collections – including archival materials recently donated by the Ragsdale family–and discuss how participants might contribute to the growing Community-Driven Archives Initiative at ASU Library.
A light lunch will be provided for guests with RSVP.
About the speakers
Professor Calvin Schermerhorn grew up in Southern Maryland. After graduate degrees at Harvard Divinity School and the University of Virginia he became a historian of slavery, capitalism and African American inequality. He teaches courses in nineteenth-century American history including the Civil War and Reconstruction and advises honors, masters and PhD students. He was a Fulbright Scholar to the University of Nottingham in 2022.
Dr. Schermerhorn has contributed to The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Time and The Washington Post, among others. He is author of four books on American slavery and inequality including The Plunder of Black America: How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Made, which was published by Yale University Press in 2025.
Jessica Salow is the Assistant Archivist of Black Collections at ASU Library. She obtained her Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) from the University of Arizona and is an alumni of Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. She is the recipient of the 2022 Archival Innovator Award from the Society of American Archivists for her work with the Community-Driven Archives Initiative at ASU Library.
In 2023 she was awarded the Catalyst Award for inspiring and igniting transformation and inclusion at ASU. She is an American Library Association’s Emerged Leader Class of 2024 and is currently the President-Elect of the Arizona Library Association (AzLA).
Her current work focuses on specialized reference, instruction and curation of a robust community-based collection of primary and secondary resources that document the lived experiences of Black people living and thriving in the state of Arizona. She currently resides on the ancestral homelands of the Akimel O’odham people of Arizona.
This event is presented by the ASU Library and the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies.
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