Deborah Miles, executive director of the Center for Diversity Education at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, is sharing the 2013 Award of Merit from the Council of State Archivists. She shares the award with Drew Reisinger, register of deeds for Buncombe County, North Carolina.
The pair was honored for “their collaborative work on the preservation and digitization of slave deeds, thereby bringing local records to the center of a national conversation on slavery and freedom.”
Miles began working on the project in 2000. “Making these documents available in every county, sometimes with the research work of high school and college students, can teach students to be the historians of the present and the future,” says Miles. “I hope that teachers in former slave holding states will see the value of students becoming diggers of history and not just passive recipients.”
A video about the project can be seen below.