Zakiya Collier (she/they) is a Black, southern, queer, disabled archivist and memory worker based in Brooklyn, NY. At the age of six, Zakiya began stewarding the collection of photographs, certificates, artworks, and mementos documenting her life and the lives of her loved ones. She is a member of Shift Collective where she supports communities in collectively developing cultural memory practices and designing sustainable programs to autonomously preserve and share their own stories. Their recent work includes serving as the first Digital Archivist at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Project Archivist at Weeksville Heritage Center, Archivist for the visual artist, Marilyn Nance; and Co-Editor of a special double issue of The Black Scholar on Black Archival Practice. She is the recipient of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar’s Diverse Voices Fellowship, Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York’s Educational Use of Archives Award for the #SchomburgSyllabus and Archival Achievement Award for Linking Lost Jazz Shrines, and an Equity-in-Action Grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council. Zakiya is a Certified Archivist through the Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA), an affiliate of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies (CR+DS), and an Archives Advisory Board Member for the LGBT Community Center National History Archive. They hold a BA in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina, an MLIS from Long Island University, and a MA in Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University.
“One thing we know as Black feminists is how important it is for us to recognize our own lives as herstory. Also as Black women, as Lesbians and feminists, there is no guarantee that our lives will ever be looked at with the kind of respect given to certain people from other races, sexes or classes. There is similarly no guarantee that we or our movement will survive long enough to become safely historical. We must document ourselves now.”
Barbara and Beverly Smith (1978), “‘I Am Not Meant to Be Alone and Without You Who Understand’: Letters from Black Feminists 1972–1978” Conditions 4, The Conditions Collective.
Recent Publications
Collier, Z., & Sutherland, T. (eds.) (2022). “Black Archival Practice II,” The Black Scholar 52(4).
Collier, Z., & Sutherland, T. (eds.) (2022). “Black Archival Practice I,” The Black Scholar 52(2).