A pact between a nonprofit foundation and a Utah state agency aims to fill the gaps in the understanding of Black history in the Beehive State.
As part of the repository agreement, the Utah Division of State History’s collection team will provide storage space and staff expertise to The Sema Hadithi Foundation, as it collects items of historical significance from people around the state.
The storage will be temporary, said Jennifer Ortiz, the division’s director, but there’s hope to find permanent storage. State officials, she said, recognize a gap in the current collection, and Black history is “an area in which we could do a much better job in collecting,” she said.
“We fully recognize that maybe that expertise, and where those objects are or what’s important to the community, doesn’t exist on our staff,” Ortiz said. “That’s why these relationships are really important to us, because it’s not our internal staff saying, ‘This is an object that represents the African American community.’ It’s actually the community saying what’s important.”
Robert Burch, executive director and founder of Sema Hadithi, said his group hopes ot have exhibits, and even its own museum, in the future. Burch and his wife, Alice, both study genealogy, with an emphasis on Black genealogy in Utah.
The foundation — whose name translates to “tell the story” in Swahili — aims to convey “African-ancestored history, heritage and culture by researching, preserving and disseminating information throughout the community,” according to its website. This pilot program with the state, Burch said, will help achieve that goal.
The foundation got involved with this preservation project, Burch said, because of the number of historical artifacts that might be in people’s homes — and the people don’t know how significant those items are, so they could be thrown away if a loved one dies.
Much of the information and artifacts of Utah’s Black history is privately owned, Burch said, and doesn’t reach a wider audience. Through Sema Hadithi’s relationship with the Division of State History, he said, a family who finds something of historical value now has a place to take it.
“Our largest problem here in the state of Utah is because of historical differences and historical animosities, Black people don’t necessarily feel safe handing their information and their artifacts over to white people that they don’t know that they can trust,” Burch said.
(Sema Hadithi Foundation) A DVD of Rev. France A. Davis delivering a sermon in 2013 at Salt Lake City's Calvary Baptist Church. The disc is among the artifacts being collected by the Sema Hadithi Foundation and the Utah Division of State History, to augment the state's records of Utah's Black history.
Burch said the early conversations between himself and Ortiz’s division were fruitful because they developed a level of trust. Often, Burch said, groups will take on a project of this scope, but not in a culturally appropriate way.
“It wasn’t about what Utah State History wanted or needed,” Burch said. “It was about what the Black community wants.”
Ortiz acknowledged that “this is a very unusual thing for a collecting institution to do.” In the museum world, she said, many groups don’t ask communities to help contribute historical information and artifacts, because of specific practices around ownership.
“This is really an opportunity for us to kind of break down those concepts of who’s in power, who has the authority over objects and storytelling, and sharing a community’s history,” she said.
The agreement with Sema Hadithi, Ortiz said, is also part of two larger projects: The division’s “The People’s of Utah Revisited” initiative, and the “America 250″ program, set for 2026, for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Though Utah wasn’t part of the Union then, Ortiz said it’s an opportunity for her team to look for gaps in their archives.
These artifacts they are seeking, Burch said, could be just about anything, such as a family Bible or family letters. Every object, he said, tells some sort of story.
“Think of this thing as a love language,” Burch said.
For example, Burch was helping his sister-in-law trace her genealogy, and they came across her grandfather’s union card and ration stamps — which were only given to those who provided services or supplies to the U.S. government.
“That helped us realize that not only did he own his own business, but his business actually [gave] support in the United States efforts during World War II,” Burch said.
Overall, Burch said, they want to encourage people to have conversations that are historically accurate — because Black history in Utah goes back to 1847, when the first Mormon settlers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.
“This project with the state of Utah is very important to us, because it means that we now look back 100 years [later] and say that we don’t have much physically to show about Black people,” Burch said. “We experienced the disappointment of that now. We don’t want that same disappointment 100 years from now. We want to make sure that that doesn’t happen again.”
