Bringing Cultural Heritage to Campus through Innovative Technical Platforms and Physical Spaces

This paper highlights efforts by university faculty, staff, students and librarians, with the support of community stakeholders, to create immersive experiences and digital exhibits for a public event on historic Rosenwald Schools toward educating both online and on-campus audiences about this local cultural heritage. Rosenwald Schools were constructed across the south in the early part of the 20th century during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation to bring schooling to Black children. The historic Russell School in Durham, North Carolina, circa 1926, was the subject of our project and the topic of a campus event held to share immersive experiences and digital exhibits with the broader community. In the paper, we detail our goals, procedures, and innovative digital tools and spaces that helped to bring the Russell School story to both virtual and on-campus audiences. The project serves as a template for how digital humanities amplify community-engaged work, where members of the public are involved in the digital preservation of their own history, and invited to celebrate the end result.