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Project Details

BlackPast is dedicated to providing reliable information on the history of Black people across the globe, and especially in North America. Our goal is to promote greater understanding of our common human experience through knowledge of the diversity of the Black experience and the ubiquity of the global Black presence. Welcome to the largest online encyclopedia on African American and Global African history on the Internet.

Subjects or Themes

African American and Global African History

Time Period

Geographic Location

Project Categories

Content Type

Texts, Images

Target Audience(s)

Creators

Dr. Quintard Taylor, Jr.

Year(s)

2007

Host Institution / Affiliation / Project Location

BlackPast.org

Software Employed

Labor and Support

BlackPast.org was founded in 2007 by historian Dr. Quintard Taylor and has grown into one of the largest freely accessible online encyclopedias of African American and African history, comprising over 10,000 pages of content. The project is sustained by a small part-time staff, including a Digital Projects and Content Manager and an Executive Director, alongside a network of volunteer scholars, academic contributors, and editorial reviewers who research, write, and fact-check entries on a rolling basis. Content development is ongoing, with infrastructure maintained by contracted web and technical support and content managed through a custom WordPress-based platform. Estimated labor from initial concept to the site's current scale spans nearly two decades, representing thousands of hours of editorial, technical, and administrative work.

Project Cost

Partnerships, funding sources, or grant-funding acknowledgement

BlackPast relies on a mix of individual donations, foundation grants, and corporate sponsorships.