Angela Stewart, archivist at JSU’s Margaret Walker Center for the Study of the African-American Experience, has been selected to receive one of the highest awards given by the Mississippi Historical Records Advisory Board (MHRAB).
The 2015 Documenting Mississippi’s History Award for Excellence will be bestowed upon Stewart at the MHRAB Awards Luncheon in Long Beach, Miss., according to Dr. Robert Luckett, Center director.
“The Award recognizes effectiveness in improving the documentary record of Mississippi through identifying and preserving records and making this documentary record available to a broad public audience,” said the MHRAB. “It also honors the documentation of under-documented communities and topics, innovative approaches to identifying and acquiring information and records, and a demonstrated success in raising public awareness of Mississippi’s history.”
“It’s a privilege to be recognized by the MHRAB,” Stewart said. “I am happy to serve Jackson State and the community.”
Stewart is “an exemplary archivist, colleague, teacher and friend,” Luckett said. “She has spent her career committed to ‘documenting Mississippi’s history’ and making sure that as many people as possible can access that history.”
As the Center’s only archivist since 2004, Stewart is responsible for the preservation of close to 40 paper-based manuscript collections, nearly 2,000 oral histories, and hundreds of pieces of art and artifacts. In her role, she manages graduate students who receive training in archives and records management, and she has even taught a course on archives at JSU. In addition, she was at the heart of a five-year, $200,000 effort to digitize half of the Margaret Walker Personal Papers, totaling 35,000 items.
For Dr. Carolyn Brown, who worked closely with Stewart to research her biography of Margaret Walker, Song of My Life, “it’s what Ms. Stewart provides in addition to her excellent skills as an archivist that sets her apart: her knowledge of her subject and the assistance she provides in tracking down answers to research question and connecting a writer like myself with additional sources and materials that may not be available at the Center.”
The Awards Luncheon will take place at noon on April 16, at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Library in Long Beach, during the Society of Mississippi Archivists’ biennial conference.
For more information, see: https://www.msarchivists.org/conference/2015/smaconference2015