The following Charity’s Children Project, Inc. press statement was issued today by Founder Patricia Smith Griffin:
In 1976, Black History Month was first recognized in educational institutions, schools, businesses, and communities across the country - birthed from Carter G. Woodson's Negro History Week which was created in 1926. Charity’s Children Project, Inc. was specifically founded to ensure Black History is honored and told with as much accuracy as humanly possible. With over 20 years of research, historical documentation, and generational archives, the Charity’s Children Project challenges the inaccuracy of Wright State’s University’s presentation on Dayton, Ohio’s first black neighborhood.
On February 15, 2023, Wright State University will be holding a public lecture entitled “Finding Africa: Using Archival Data to Recover Dayton’s First Black Neighborhood” at the Dunbar Library. Indicated on the Wright State University’s website, this lecture “will discuss the ongoing research” being conducted by Drs. Marlese Durr and Geoffrey R. Owens of the School of Social Sciences and International Studies Department.
Ironically, in order to have any archival discussion as it relates to “Dayton’s first black neighborhood,” one must include data and archives from Charity Davis Ceasar Broady (1802-1899) and her descendants. Charity is the daughter that John Issac Davis brought to the Miami Valley of Dayton, Ohio, in 1802/1803 and where her descendants continue to live some TWELVE generations later. Yet, no such discussion or contact has been made with any of Mrs. Davis Ceasar Broady’s living descendants in Ohio, the Charity’s Children Project, or The Legacy of Charity’s Children, LLC, which holds the generational archival data. (Note: The Legacy of Charity’s Children short story podcast series is inspired by the family’s generational archives and can be found on www.charitychildrens.org).
Today, across this nation, African American history is being challenged and even erased by cursory views that are inadequate and superficial yet often presented as empirical facts. Research skimming the surface of historical events is insulting and insincere in its motives, especially when evidence exists and can be easily accessed, particularly by academics. One of our primary missions at Charity Children’s Project, Inc., is to present educational lectures and presentations in an effort to correct erroneous actions such as these. Our processes and methodologies of family and community archiving, ancestry research as well as fact finding the family tree of Mrs. Davis Ceasar Broady, are dedicated to presenting accurate and primary source research.
At Charity Children’s Project, Inc, we want to eradicate the “white mansplaining efforts” used by various scholars and ensure our local institutions of higher learning are moving with educational responsibility, integrity, and accuracy as it relates to Black Daytonians. Although we acknowledge and recognize that historical data and evidence is constantly evolving and new truths are being discovered every day, it is vital that the descendants of one of Dayton's oldest Black families be included in these much-needed conversations. It is equally, if not more important, that the archival data presented in this lecture and others is free of inaccuracies, omissions or misleading data, especially when being presented to the public.
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Contact:
La’Chris Robinson Jordan, Publicist
Email: charityschildren@gmail.com
Website: www.charityschildren.org
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