By Puja Lamsal
The stories of our families, churches, communities, and towns shape who we are. Preserving those stories ensures that future generations can understand the people and experiences that came before them. Through the support of the Racial Awareness, Equity and Repair Fund, two transformative projects at two of our Moravian Archives have expanded access to previously hidden histories while advancing efforts toward historical justice, reconciliation, and community connection.
In 2023, the Moravian Archives, Southern Province launched a major preservation and accessibility initiative. Records from St. Philips Moravian Church were rehoused in archival-quality storage, and a searchable online finding aid was created for the Archives’ Slavery Collection. Documents that once required a visit to Winston-Salem can now be accessed from anywhere in the world. By making these often-overlooked records visible and accessible, the project deepens understanding of the Moravian Church’s relationship to enslavement and supports ongoing reconciliation efforts.
Building on this success, the Moravian Archives, Bethlehem (Northern Province) received support from the Fund in 2024 to digitize 2,394 pages of manuscript records from the Moravian Church in the Eastern West Indies. Spanning the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, these records document the lives, families, and communities of African-Caribbean people and contain thousands of names and personal histories invaluable to descendants, genealogists, and scholars. Historian Dr. Jon Sensbach described the collection as “an enormous compendium of names across several generations,” offering a rare opportunity to reconstruct family histories and trace community continuity in the post-emancipation Caribbean.
Together, these projects share a common purpose: bringing marginalized histories into the light. The Racial Awareness, Equity and Repair Fund has done far more than support digitization. It has preserved fragile records, removed barriers to access, reconnected families with their histories, and expanded our understanding of communities shaped by enslavement, migration, faith, and resilience. The Fund has also addressed a challenge familiar to archives everywhere: preservation requires resources. Archival storage, conservation, and digitization may not be glamorous, but they are essential investments in safeguarding historical records and ensuring that the stories they contain remain accessible for generations to come.
By opening these archives to the world, the Fund is helping ensure that the stories once confined to boxes and vaults can now inform scholarship, inspire dialogue, and contribute to a more honest and complete understanding of our shared past. None of this would be possible without generous supporters who believe in this work. Through the continued commitment of donors, volunteers, and community partners, these stories—and the communities they represent—will remain accessible for generations to come. Moreover, we encourage you to volunteer in different areas of the archives, including data entry, event management, and box preparation. Your support can make a meaningful difference, as sustaining archival operations requires considerable time, effort, funding, and resources.
This article was written by Puja Lamsal, MMFA’s summer intern. Puja is originally from Pokhara, Nepal, and is a student at Salem College, double majoring in Professional Writing and Political Science.
