ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the question of “decolonizing” archives through a discussion of the Ballitore Collection, an archive of Irish Quaker materials held at UCSB Library’s Special Research Collections, and the Ballitore Project, a collaboration between UCSB and Howard University dedicated to digitizing and researching the materials. Focusing on a poem titled “The Negro: To Edmund Burke” by Mary Leadbeater, who originally assembled the collection in the 19th century, the chapter explores the exclusion of Black voices in the collection despite Quakers’ historical connection to abolitionist movements. The collaborative Ballitore Project offers methods to address such contradictions and exclusions.
