Projects

In collaboration with Dauphin County Library System and the T. Morris Chester Welcome Center at the McCormick Riverfront Library, students are working in 2022-2023 to create a Story Map and a series of videos about Thomas Morris Chester, a 19th century Black journalist who championed civil rights. The videos and Story Map feature historic African American figures along the T. Morris Chester Way, a section of Walnut Street between the Commonwealth Monument and the T. Morris Chester Research and Welcome Center. The videos provide virtual attendees dramatic monologues about the quest for parity, equity, and justice in America from historical actors known as the Pennsylvania Past Players.

In partnership with Saving our Ancestors’ Legacies and Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, students are working in 2022-2023 to map Harrisburg's oldest extant historically Black cemetery located in Penbrook, Pennsylvania. Analyzing high-resolution images captured through a recent drone survey, the team is digitizing the locations of every grave marker, collecting data at the cemetery, researching the cemetery’s historic newspapers to create a digital interactive map of the cemetery.

In partnership with Harrisburg’s Civic Club, Messiah University students are working in 2022-2023 to help honor women of Harrisburg present and past. A small garden tour accompanied by audio narratives of the honored women’s lives paint a picturesque scene of early day, and modern Harrisburg in a manner that not only honors the women involved, but also humanizes them in a manner in which their unique identities and lives may be known. The tour seeks to alternate the women being honored throughout the year as an attempt to not only inform, but inspire all young women within Harrisburg and beyond.