CCI Alumna Dawn Betts-Green has been appointed as the Assistant Director of the Invisible Histories Project.
The Invisible Histories Project was created in February of 2018 in order to locate and preserve historical artifacts relating to the LGBTQ+ community in the Southern United States. They act as a liaison between the LGBTQ+ community and various institutions like museums, archives, and libraries. Their main areas of focus are community engagement, archiving, preservation, research & scholarship, education, and professional development and best practices. Currently, they collect in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.
Betts-Green spoke on the importance of the project, not only for the community, but for her personally. “My goal has always been to stay in the South and support the queer community,” she said. “As a queer youth in central Alabama, I desperately needed this history; I needed to know that I was not alone and that there are and have always been so many of us here, not just surviving but thriving. To be able to be a part of the work IHP does to support the future of the queer south is a privilege, and I look forward to using my expertise to provide access to queer history so that no one ever forgets how much queerness is built into our roots.”
Betts-Green holds multiple degrees from Florida State: three Bachelor’s degrees in Women’s Studies, Religion, and Creative Writing, as well as a Master’s and Ph.D in Library and Information Studies. Her research interests primarily focus on the Southern US, but also include radical librarianship, information literacy, and social justice. During her time at FSU, she was a member of the FSU Fellow Society, and the Point Foundation LGBTQ Scholar Program. She credits FSU with giving her a strong foundation for her future professional and academic pursuits. “In addition to meeting and working with amazing scholars, FSU afforded me the opportunity to develop my teaching and research skills and learn who I wanted to be when I grew up.”
In her new position, Betts-Green will focus on community programming, diversifying the collections, ensuring that the IHP will remain active in each state where it operates. She is passionate about teaching, and hopes to continue that in her future endeavors.
To read more about the Invisible Histories Project, visit https://invisiblehistory.org/.