STIP 2023 Summer Video Summary

This program gave me the opportunity to experience things that I never thought I would be able to experience. From programming to photography, archival work to interviews, and celebrations to needed breaks, this summer has been an incredible journey. I worked under Dr. Chavis on the John Mitchell Junior Project (JMJP) thanks to the Office of Student Scholarships, Creative Activities, and Research’s (OSCAR) Summer Team Impacts Project (STIP). My work was comprised of assisting Dr. Chavis in creating a documentary about the lynching of Matthew Williams. Officially, I was the “archival producer,” which meant that I was responsible for finding footage, photos, and audio in archives that was relevant to the production of the film. However, those were not nearly the only things that I was able to work on this summer.

The most impactful, meaningful, and incredible part of this internship was the trips that we took to Salisbury, Maryland, to do research and engage with the community. Although I wasn’t working on this part of the project exclusively, a large part of what Dr. Chavis does is work for communities to help them preserve and remember their history. So, we took two trips to Salisbury this summer to do just that. During these trips, we worked on archives, conducted interviews, and volunteered. The most remarkable part of the two trips was the Juneteenth festival. I have only studied Salisbury in regards to its racist past–but I never experienced the joy that the Black community retains despite Salisbury’s past. The Juneteenth festival was an incredible opportunity to see Black joy at its peak, and it’s something that I will never forget. Of course, that is only one of many incredible experiences that I was lucky enough to have this summer thanks to OSCAR’s STIP internship.

My name is Samuel Biby, and this summer I was working under Dr. Chavis for the John Mitchell Junior Program (JMJP). I ended up with this position thanks to the Mason Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research’s (OSCAR) Summer Team Impact Project (STIP) program.

My work has consisted of helping Dr. Chavis research the lynching of Matthew Williams (a resident of Salisbury, Maryland), taking photos, conducting interviews, and working on relabeling and preserving archives.

This summer has been incredibly rewarding. I have been afforded opportunities to utilize my passions and interests in technology, writing, videography, and photography. Additionally, aside from my work using technology, I was able to engage directly with a community.

On the first trip we took this summer, we went to Salisbury, Maryland. For some brief history, Salisbury used to contain a sub-community called Georgetown. Georgetown was a thriving Black community with a great nightlife and booming business district. However, during the 30s and 40s, two major highways were constructed that completely demolished this neighborhood. Only one building was left””the Charles Chipman Cultural Center. This building, to this day, stores a lot of very important records about the community that used to be there.

Since all of my work and the work of this group revolves (mostly) around Salisbury, we were given a tour by James Yamakawa, a local activist. During this tour, we were shown the important locations that I had been studying””such as the courthouse where Matthew Williams was lynched. I won’t lie, most of the history that I had learned about Salisbury had been dark, as proven by the tour we were given. However, we also volunteered and helped to setup the local Juneteenth festival.

This festival showed me a side of Salisbury that I had never before seen. Most of my summer had been spent researching and helping to write a documentary about Matthew William’s lynching. This festival, however, showed Black joy and pride, it showed me a community that I had never before experienced, a community full of great dancing, great singing, great friendship, and even better food.

I spent most of my time taking photos and documenting everything that was going on. It was a vital part of Salisbury that I was so happy I was final able to see. A good picture always has a foreground and a background, and this was my first time seeing the foreground of Salisbury.

The rest of the trip and most of the proceeding trip was spent working on archiving. Archiving is something that I have never done before””I am not a history major and have never done research in a real archive. This position, though, gave me this great experience that I never thought I would get.

We refoldered documents, labeled folders, digitized photos, and created a spreadsheet recording everything that we had sorted through. The process was long, but made easier by great company and leadership. During our stay in Salisbury, we roomed at the University of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, which is a historically Black college with a hotel on campus.

An important part of this work that our leadership is very considerate of is self care. Hence, after working several pretty long days with the archives, we spent a few hours at Ocean City, Maryland, which was a great way for us to relieve stress and get our minds off of all of the challenging and, for lack of better word, depressing content that we had been working with.

The third and final trip that I went on was to the Association of African American Museums (AAAM) conference in Nashville, Tennessee. During this trip, I helped to run a table where we explained our research and work to people who were interested. However, what I am most proud of doing during this trip was conducting interviews.

While I take photos as a hobby and passion, I have never branched much into film. However, during this trip, I was responsible for setting up lights, audio, and cameras to record people during the conference. The interviews are by no means perfect (there’s a lot of background noise, there’s too much back-lighting, and the framing isn’t ideal), but I’m still very proud of what I did and happy with both the results and experience.

This experience also allowed me to make very important connection with scholars who are very relevant in their respective fields. Bonding with these incredible people usually happened during the receptions that occurred daily after the main convention. The most memorable reception was the final one, in which AAAM hosted some prominent Black artists for a concert. The concert was incredible.

The experience was very similar to the Juneteenth festival. I was able to witness Black community in a way that I hadn’t before, and it was enriching.

Throughout this video, I have talked solely about the trips that we took. This is because I found those to be the most impactful on not only my professional life, but my personal life too. However, it is definitely worth talking a little bit about what I did when we weren’t directly engaging with communities.

As I briefly mentioned, Dr. Chavis is working on putting together a documentary about the story of Matthew Williams””the events, the investigation, and the modern day effects of the lynching. I drafted an outline for the script of the documentary, found photos and b-roll of the content discussed in the outline, worked on the budget for the film, took photos for the film, and I am currently working on sending out emails and gaining the rights to use other peoples’ photos and videos in the documentary.

This entire experience has been just extraordinary. Opportunities like these are why I love being a George Mason Student. Thank you so much for listening about my experience.