WASHINGTON — At the end of a concrete corridor, inside a simple storage space the size of a small sedan, the artwork, signs and photographs once lining a White House fence still bloom with life, memories of the sinew and struggle of a moment now hidden from public view.
A giant, "YOU'RE FIRED," poster comes into view. "BLACK LIBERATION," is printed on a sign placed gingerly between two towers of boxes.
They are the items and artifacts from the much-loathed H Street fence, a boundary built to separate the Trump White House from Black Lives Matter Plaza.
The Biden Administration dismantled the barrier earlier this year, but not before Nadine Seiler saved more than 700 mementos attached to each section of steel.
“We were lucky that the Library of Congress took some pieces, and Howard University took some pieces,” Seiler said in an interview. “But the vast majority of the collection remained with us.”
Seiler is referring to fellow “fence guardians,” friends who camped alongside what they eventually named “The Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence.”
Seiler and fellow fence guardian Karen Irwin are now finding homes for each item, asking interested businesses, non-profits and organizations to contact them via their BLM Memorial Fence Facebook page.
“Ideally, the Black Lives Matter community would like the pieces to stay in the hands of Black organizations, ideally,” Seiler said. “But personally, any organization that would give these treasures a safe home, and recognize their value, they should reach out as well.”
Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library is engaging in a massive parallel effort to scan each item, creating a virtual collection of what Seiler has managed to save. The meticulous scanning began in April, as Seiler drove items in batches of 100 to the library’s facilities. The effort will continue into 2022, Seiler said.
“Enoch Pratt is going to have a partnership with the D.C. Public Library Foundation, The People’s Archive, where they will host the digital collections,” Seiler offered. “With the generosity of this, and other people finding homes for these items, it will mean they will be around for the next 100 years for people to see.”
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