Relaunch 2024

In the ten years since the project launched, many aspects of digitally archiving protests have changed, both technologically and conceptually. In the spring of 2024, Washington University Libraries staff began work to migrate the Documenting Ferguson Project to the OmekaS platform to ensure the contents remain freely accessible online. 

The project team is guided by the principles and ethics articulated by groups including A4BLiP, Documenting the Now, Project STAND, and witness.org. We gratefully acknowledge and appreciate their work over the past ten years, much of it led by Black archivists, librarians, and community organizers.

Contributions

Although the methods for contributing to Documenting Ferguson have changed since launched ten years ago, we remain committed to helping preserve this history for future generations.   

If you are interested in contributing materials, please contact us.

2024 Project Team

• Elizabeth Schwartz, Digital Publishing Manager
• Sarah Swanz, Digital Humanities Librarian
• Miranda Rectenwald, Curator of Local History
• Kelly Schmidt, Reparative Public Historian
• Kelli West, Digital Archivist and Preservation Specialist

Original Project 2014-2016

As events in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson rapidly unfolded in 2014 after the shooting death of Michael Brown, librarians and archivists at Washington University Libraries realized that important moments of history would be photographed and videoed by people with cell phones and digital recorders. They quickly organized a project—Documenting Ferguson—using the Omeka Classic platform and contribution plug-in, allowing anyone interested to upload and save these important files.  

A digitally-archived version of the original site is available on the Internet Archive.

Project Goal

Documenting Ferguson is a digital repository that seeks to preserve and make accessible community- and media-generated original content that was captured and created following the killing of 18-year-old, Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014.  A freely available resource for students, scholars, teachers, and the greater community, Documenting Ferguson has the ultimate goal of providing diverse perspectives of the events surrounding the conflicts in Ferguson.

Community participants and media representatives are invited to contribute original digital content, such as images, video, audio, and stories related to memorials, community meetings, rallies, and protests occurring in Ferguson and the surrounding St. Louis County and City.

A partnership between Washington University and St. Louis-area universities and organizations, contributed content is publicly available and is subject to an evaluation process. Materials containing unrelated or incriminating content will not be accepted.

A report containing the project's statement of purpose and detailing processes for technical and content development, collaborating with community organizations, and long term outcomes of the project, including assessment, is available online.

2014-2016 Project Team

• Rudolph Clay, Head of Library Diversity Initiatives and Outreach Services and African & African American Studies Librarian
• Shannon Davis, Digital Library Services Manager
• Chris Freeland, Associate University Librarian
• Nadia Ghasedi, Associate University Librarian
• Sonya Rooney, University Archivist
• Andrew Rouner, Director of Scholarly Publishing
• Rebecca Wanzo (faculty advisor), Associate Director for The Center of the Humanities
• Micah Zeller, Copyright Librarian

Media Coverage of the Documenting Ferguson project

WashU Expert: How to document the protests by Diane Toroian Keaggy, The Source, July 6, 2020.

Documenting Ferguson inspires similar projects while navigating its own challenges by Willis Ryder Arnold, St. Louis Public Radio, November 29, 2015.

Documenting Ferguson: Capturing History as It Happens poster by Sonya Rooney and Jennifer Kirmer, Presented at the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC) Annual Meeting, May 6-9 2015. 

Wash U, History Museum Collecting Ferguson Artifacts article by Erica Smith and "Cityscape" hosted by Steve Potter, St. Louis Public Radio, January 30, 2015.

As Ferguson Looks to Rebuild, Archivists Move to Preserve What Was Lost by Mitch Smith, The New York Times, January 30, 2015.

Challenges Face Project Documenting Protests in Ferguson by Willis Ryder Arnold, St. Louis Public Radio, December 15, 2014.

Documenting Ferguson: Capturing History as it Happens by Jennifer Kirmer and Sonya Rooney, Archival Outlook, November/December 2014.

2 projects collect media and things from the media in Ferguson by Kristen Hare, poynter.org (via Internet Archive), December 5, 2014.

Washington University Libraries Builds Ferguson Digital Archives by Emanuele Berry, St. Louis Public Radio, September 21, 2014.

‘Documenting Ferguson’ ​free, online archive created by Washington University Libraries by Diane Toroian Keaggy, The Source by Washington University, September 17, 2014.