The Daily Universe
BYU is heightening its efforts to address racism on campus.
Since the protests surrounding the death of George Floyd and the subsequent rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, BYU has sought to follow the admonition of President Russell M. Nelson and leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to “review processes, laws, and organizational attitudes regarding racism and root them out once and for all.”
University level
reform
The BYU Committee on Race, Equity & Belonging was formed under the direction of President Kevin J Worthen over the summer. The committee’s mission statement says:
The Daily Universe
A portrait of Anisha Adderly, one of the people interviewed and photographed for “The Black Stories Project” photography exhibit, is on display in the Harold B. Lee Library. (Madison Casagranda)
Light emanates from their eyes. Emotion echoes in their words. They are members of the Black community in Utah, and their experiences come to life in the photography exhibit, “The Black Stories Project,” now on display on the fifth floor of the Harold B. Lee Library.
The project features portrait photographs of 76 Black women, men and youth made using tintype, a photographic process that dates to the Civil War era. In tintype photography, a thin metal plate is coded with a chemical called collodion. The plate is then sensitized to light with silver nitrate and inserted into a non-digital, accordion-like camera called a field camera. The field camera is then exposed to light, embedding the image onto the plate.