Welcome!

The Living Archives project is gathering, preserving, and sharing the stories of Mecklenburg County residents who navigated the COVID-19 virus. Begun in 2021, the project was re-launched in Spring 2022 with a renewed understanding that the COVID-19 experience was going to be on-going and complex. The project was designed with an equity lens, focusing predominantly on Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Indigenous voices that are often excluded from archives. Nearly 350 neighbors shared their experiences with the archive through audio visual interviews, poetry, art and written story and all of these narratives are available on YouTube and, beginning in June, in perpetuity at the digital Spangler Robinson Carolina Room of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.

We have turned a spotlight on 24 of our storytellers through a new traveling exhibit that will reach every corner of Mecklenburg County. Check out our events page to find out when we will be at an institution near you and then come check out the launch event and exhibit to meet some of the storytellers.

You are also invited to join us on April 11^th as we unveil mural from artist Abel Jackson on the wall of the Lions Services building at Eastway and Tryon.  And on May 16^th at 6 pm at Discovery Place everyone is invited to join us for an evening with storytellers and music in celebration of the project and our collective experience.

Project Origins

During the height of the pandemic, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library was collecting stories for a project called Engage 2020, which sought to tell the stories of women—particularly women of color—engaged in the suffrage movement and other civic initiatives over the last 100 years.

Over the course of the initiative, Engage 2020 became more than just another project, it became a once in a lifetime opportunity to capture history as it happened, to tell the stories of individuals, especially Black women, making a different today as they stand on the shoulders of those who came before them. Engage 2020 was an act of passion, of activism, and of allyship for everyone involved.
— Martha Yesowitch

It was during the height of the pandemic that the Library understood the importance of capturing and preserving history by engaging with those deeply impacted. These are the origin stories collected during Engage 2020 that sparked the creation of the Living Archives Project.