Black History Month – Race and Computing
Explore organizations that provide tools, support, and resources to the Black community.
By IEEE Computer Society Team on
Black History Month during the 75th anniversary year of the Computer Society provides a great opportunity for examining the history of race and technology within the computing profession, and contemplating how those lessons may inspire the future. Relevant to the subject, we are making available from our archive an article from IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (Annals), published by the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS), which takes an in-depth look at how black scientists suffer “almost complete invisibility in most of the history of computing literature.”
Published in the January/February 2017 issue of Annals, R. Arvid Nelsen’s “Race and Computing: The Problem of Sources, the Potential of Prosopography, and the Lesson of Ebony Magazine” begins to correct the “whiteness” of historical records. Nelsen’s findings came in the wake of Hidden Figures, a movie inspired by a nonfiction book of the same name about black women mathematicians working for NASA during the space race.
“Over the past few decades, historians have increasingly recognized the need to examine the intersection of race and technology,” Nelsen writes in his article. “Although recognition of this need has grown, scholarship itself has not kept pace, especially compared with the relative success found in explorations of gender. The lack of source material on race and computing in traditional archival collections needs to be faced,” he adds.
In the years since this paper was published, “A profound shift has occurred, with more recent programs being founded by as well as for communities of color themselves and demonstrating an appreciation for the inherent talents and potentials of individuals to contribute to computing and to society at large, rather than approaching communities from the outside and hoping to rescue communities defined by their obstacles,” R. Arvid Nelsen, said in a recent exchange with Computer Society President Forrest Shull.
Community and national organizations aiming to support the African American community in the United States are doing so in a variety of ways, by providing tools and resources best suited to the individuals they are working to support. Originally listed in an article published by Full Stack Academy, these organizations provide tools, support, and resources to individuals within the Black community to pursue careers and opportunities in Tech."
