Project NIA Newsletter | August 2023
“Let it be known to all,
The story of the glorious struggles of my people.
Too long… Too long has it been kept from us.”

-Margaret Burroughs, "Let It Be Known"
Youth Public History Institute Recap
This summer, we invited 16 young people to get together to explore anti-criminalization through a historical lens rooted in archival and other research methods
The Youth Public History Institute (YPHI) was a program conceived by Mariame Kaba, founder of Project NIA and Interrupting Criminalization, that took place in July 2023 in New York City. The institute invited 16-24-year olds interested in prisons, policing, and surveillance, research & social justice to collaborate on creating a walking tour. Funding for the program came from the Mellon Foundation and Project NIA's individual donors.

"I have been really wanting to find spaces that are not connected to an academic institution or a university where we're coming together to study and be in abolitionist praxis with each other." -Daria
Get the full scoop on YPHI in their end-of-institute newsletter!
Learn about all things YPHI directly from the cohort members!
This newsletter documents the Youth Public History Institute, the people, conversations, and the community they built during the three weeks of the Youth Public History Institute program. This publication was prepared dutifully by YPHI's documentarian and participant, Tia Poquette.

Additionally, you can check out the YPHI Padlet for the materials that participants went over each week, as well as additional resources about PIC abolition, policing, slavery, and resistance.
"YPHI seemed like an amazing opportunity to learn from [Mariame] directly and build on my own abolition philosophy. I wanted to better ground myself in the history of this city and understand how systemic oppressions have shaped the communities I hope to keep serving here. I’ve learned more than I can even capture..." -Claire
Meet YPHI Coordinator, Zahra Khan
Check out this message from the institute's coordinator
When Mariame asked me earlier this year to join her in organizing the 2023 Youth Public History Institute, I was overcome with gratitude and absolutely thrilled. Collaborating on a project rooted in PIC abolition, research, and public history, in concert with brilliant and thoughtful co-conspirators, was a dream. 

As with most beginnings, there was a guiding question: What would happen if walking tours were used to teach young people about the histories of slavery, prisons, and police in NYC, and the stories of collective resistance to the anti-Black violence and systemic oppression that has shaped this city? This question became a central focus of the following months as we considered curricula and programming. As winter turned to spring, YPHI applications were released, received, and reviewed. There was tremendous interest in the program, and I was both humbled by the incredible response and reminded that we badly need more spaces for young and curious change-makers to find one another and build together. One by one, our team of 16 participants, facilitators, and collaborators came together, and, before we knew it, we were gathering at the CCNY School of Architecture on a hot day in July for our first day of the institute. For the following three weeks, we walked our way through Harlem, Lower Manhattan, and Central Park, growing our understanding of the structures around us, and wondering how we may situate ourselves along the continuum of abolitionist imaginings, strivings, and actions that began long before us, and that will continue for years to come. What is our role in expanding the reach of PIC abolition and making a better world? The members of the YPHI pondered these questions and more, immersing themselves in study, knowledge-sharing, and co-creation. They learned how to conduct research, how to utilize archival materials at our public libraries, and, ultimately, how to tell stories about carceral histories by developing walking tours of their very own. 
My hope is that our participants come away from this experience with the confidence to experiment with storytelling, useful research skills, a greater appreciation of, and commitment to, public history, walking tours, and abolition, as well as a sense of kinship and community. As coordinator, I mostly saw my role as a comrade dedicated to offering love, support, resources, and encouragement to our participants, and as a co-struggler honored to build alongside a fantastic team. The 2023 Youth Public History Institute has been an unforgettable experience. Thank you to all of the participants, facilitators, and collaborators for making this possible. I'm so thankful for the dreaming and scheming we did together this summer! 

With gratitude, Zahra xx 
"A key takeaway that I’ve gotten so far from this program is the extent of Black survival and resistance." -Mariah

"The institute gave me a more nuanced perspective on the history of a place I’ve been living in my whole life. With all the walking tours we went on, it was seemingly impossible to escape the colonialism and systems of oppression embedded into the very land we were walking on." -River