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Undergraduate Studies Texas A&M University Undergraduate Studies
Published on 02/08/2022 02:19 PM


By Sydnie Harrell, Office of Undergraduate Studies at Texas A&M University

Rebecca Hankins never imagined having a career as an archivist. She did not know the occupation existed until she discovered it by happenstance in November 1988. Almost 24 years later, her job has allowed her to expand and share her knowledge about Black history, women’s history, LQBTQIA+ history and more at Texas A&M University.
 

Professor Rebecca Hankins, Africana Resources Librarian/Curator in the Cushing Memorial Library.

Discovering Archivism

Growing up, Hankins was interested in history, but her passion was math. Before going to college, she took a class at the Urban League of Louisiana where she learned business skills and was encouraged to apply for jobs and participate in interviews. Little did she know one of the interviews would introduce her to her dream career.
 
“I had never heard about archives,” Hankins said. “[For] the job that I applied to at the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, [I] was like ‘what is this?,’ but they hired me, and that’s where I learned about archives. This was a place where I became something I never [knew] I could be.”
 
While working at the Amistad, Hankins graduated from Loyola University and earned her master’s from Louisiana State University. She also passed the exam to become a Certified Archivist and continued to gain experience and recognition as an archivist, so much so that she was appointed to the National Historical Publications & Records Commission by former President Barack Obama in December 2016.
 
Induction of Professor Rebecca Hankins (fourth from right) as a President Obama appointee to the National Historical Publication and Records Commission in Washington DC in 2017.

“I just started to have this passion for teaching about history and culture and just learning about the accomplishments and the acknowledgment of all of the U.S. population,” Hankins said. “It just was a way of igniting my sense of the importance of history.”
 

Cushing Memorial Library and Archives

Hankins started working at the Texas A&M University Libraries in 2003 as an archivist, librarian and curator at the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives. Since being hired, she has been named the Wendler Endowed Professor at the university and has worked to expand the library’s collections.
 
“Endowments are really ways for the university to provide access to build collections,” Hankins said. “For me, it offers me an opportunity to work on a number of different areas.”
 
Hankins is the Cushing library subject specialist for Africana Studies and its Special Collections and Archives, Women’s and Gender Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies and Arabic/Middle Eastern Languages. Pertaining to the Africana Studies collections and archives, Hankins has worked to make the collection more inclusive.
 
“When I first came here, I surveyed ‘What do we have?’ and ‘Where are the gaps?’” Hawkins said. “I saw there was not a large percentage of materials that looked at alternative movements.”
 
Some of the Africana Studies collection contains archives linked with the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr., but Hankins wanted to incorporate unique documents related to student and labor movements as well as other events that are not as widely known.
 
“I’ve tried to be as inclusive in that history as possible, so it’s not just the U.S.; it’s international and national,” Hankins said. “There were these other people, these other movements that worked long before the modern civil rights movement.”
 
One of the major collections Hankins has been involved in is the Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture. Among the LGBTQIA+ pieces, many are associated with the Africana Studies Collection, including postcards schoolchildren sent to political activist Angela Davis. While inquiring about the collection, Hankins’ research led her to learn about late boxer and activist Muhammad Ali’s trip to Texas A&M in 1979.
 
Postcards from German school children to Angela Davis as part of the Angela Davis Collection at the Cushing Memorial Library.

“I didn’t know that Muhammad Ali had come to [Texas],” Hankins said. “That’s the thing about the richness of the LGBTQ[IA+] Collection; it has so many different aspects of it. Collections always lead me to other materials.”
 

Black History Month

The Africana Studies Collection, Don Kelly Research Collection and other related collections where students can learn about Black history are available year-round. Additionally, the Cushing Library and Memorial Archives has a Black History Month exhibit on the March on Washington on display now.
 
“I'm always telling people Black history is our history,” Hankins said. “It’s not divorced from American history; it is American history. Black history… is all of our history from the beginning… to our present day. You cannot talk about history without including that.”
 
Hankins encourages Texas A&M students, staff and faculty to take advantage of the library resources to learn more about Black history. She also suggests that those interested in the collections and exhibits visit the library in person instead of accessing them online.
 
“I would definitely say come take advantage of some of the resources we have here,” Hankins said. “There’s a big difference between looking at a digital surrogate online. It’s a very different feeling of actually seeing a document.”

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Media Contact: Anna Transue, transuea@tamu.edu