For the month of February, the Hagen History Center will be recognizing African Americans in Erie County: A Trail of Shared Heritage (The Trail).
Trail #20: Booker T. Washington Center, 1720 Holland Street, Erie Founded in 1923, the Booker T. Washington Center has called its Holland Street location home since 1950. It is the oldest of three community centers that serve as forums for citizens’ groups, while providing residents a variety of social services, early childcare and youth education programs, healthcare assistance, and cultural activities. The John F. Kennedy Center (2021 E. 20th Street) has served Eastside neighborhoods for more than 50 years. Located at 312 Chestnut in the heart of historic Jerusalem, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center was launched in the late ‘60s by a group of African American leaders – Alex Thompson, chief among them. Vital hubs of neighborhood activity, the centers also build effective grassroots leadership.
For the month of February, Hagen History Center will be recognizing African Americans in Erie County: A Trail of Shared Heritage (The Trail).
The Trail is a community history project that dates back to 2013, that continues to inspire us about Erie’s Black History. Hagen History Center planned to present multiple images for each stop on the Trail, but then realized our collections lack visual materials for a few of the stops.
To help us rectify this, we are inviting readers to become Citizen Archivists.
A Citizen Archivist is a term coined in 2010 by the National Archives and describes a virtual volunteer who helps professional archivists by locating and uploading relevant information, tagging, and adding metadata to already established online archives.
Click the link for the Trail, and if you happen to have documents, photographs, maps, or other images associated with a trail number, send us a message on social media! We will be posting a few times a week, so stay tuned!
