the continent. The encyclopedia is concerned with Africa as a whole” (p. 216). Du Bois died before he could see the work through to completion. Committed to the dream, the Secretariat for the Encyclopedia Africana published three volumes throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
The project was revived in the 1970s by three young scholars at the University of Cambridge. All from different places in the Black world, these three scholars included an African American, Henry Gates, Jr.; a Nigerian, Wole Soykinka; and a Ghanaian British, Kwame Appiah. They expanded on Du Bois’ vision to include scholars not only from the African continent but also from the diaspora. In 1999, Perseus Books and Microsoft Corporation funded and published the 2.5 million word project including the work of about 400 scholars on CD-ROM and the five-volume paper version Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (Appiah & Gates, Jr., n.d.).
Doing the Work, but Is It Our Responsibility?
Black people are often expected to do race labor for friends and or family and even be the Black expert on anti-racism in their workplace (Buckingham, 2018; Nichole, 2020). This work is exhausting. Author Alanah Nichole (2020) wrote, “You don’t pay Black people enough—or at all—for the emotional labor and anti-racism work that some of you are asking for” (para. 1). Changing systems, removing gatekeepers and barriers, and eradicating white supremacy is not the responsibility or work of Black people. It is the responsibility of those that benefit and have the privilege and power from those systems. Participation in such work is optional and often strategic to preserve mental and physical health.
Black Wikipedia editors and organizers choose to organize in the community around this work even though it is not their responsibility, and they should not be expected to do this work. Black women face both marginalization and tokenization in white spaces like Wikipedia; however, they are often at the forefront of organizing projects and communities platforming BIPOC voices in the Wikipedia movement. After experiencing erasure and systemic disparities on Wikipedia, these leaders still decided to organize, fill gaps by
