keondra bills freemyn
keondra bills freemyn

Welcome.

 
unsplash-image-YIy1cd3xN4w.jpg
 
Keondra_bills_freemyn_BLTSMCPhotoBooth_20250421_002_-_54505638969.jpg

About keondra.

keondra bills freemyn is a writer, memory worker, and archivist in the Black tradition currently serving as Co-Executive Director of Black Lunch Table, a radical archiving project centering Black visual artists. Originally from South Central, LA, keondra is a former US diplomat and has worked with the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, New York Public Library and DC Public Library on oral history, digital transcription, and metadata projects centering marginalized communities. She is founder of the digital archival initiative Black Women Writers Project and former coordinator of Project STAND, an independent archival consortium focused on the ethical documentation of student movements. A dedicated digital humanist, keondra is a former Curationist.org Critics of Color fellow and an African American Digital & Experimental Humanities (AADHUM) Scholar. keondra earned a Bachelors degree in Marketing from Fordham University, a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University, and a Master of Library and Information Science in Archives and Digital Curation from University of Maryland. keondra completed a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies at Harvard University and is a Society of American Archivists Digital Archives Specialist.

Recent Work

Bearing Witness: James Presley Ball, Black Image Making, and the Promise of Freedom in the American West (Essay) →

Tender Mercies: Exploring Agency and Intimacy in the Personal Archives of Black Women Writers (Lecture) →

unsplash-image-YIy1cd3xN4w.jpg

Résumé

Full CV Available Upon Request

Experience

Co-Executive Director, Archives & Strategy
Black Lunch Table→
May 2023 to Present

Founder & Principal
Black Women Writers Project→ / 67th St Storytellers
March 2015 to Present

Project STAND→ Coordinator
University of Maryland Special Collections
August 2021 - December 2023

Researcher, Web Archiving Working Group
National Digital Stewardship Alliance→
November 2021 - October 2023

Digital Transcription Volunteer
David Driskell Center→
May 2021 - Present

Digital Transcription Volunteer
Smithsonian Institute→
June 2019 - Present

Digital Transcription Volunteer
Library of Congress→
June 2019 - Present

Special Collections Volunteer
DC Public Library - The People’s Archive
January 2020 - May 2021

Ambassador
Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture
April 2016 - April 2021

Oral History Volunteer
New York Public Library - Community Oral History Project
June 2019 - May 2020

Senior Manager, International Government Relations
Ocean Conservancy
September 2017 - October 2019

Foreign Service Officer
U.S. Department of State
September 2012 - September 2017

Peace Corps Volunteer
Peace Corps Fiji
May 2008 - June 2010

Market Research Analyst
Time Warner - ESSENCE Magazine
August 2006 - May 2008

Education

MLIS Archives & Digital Curation
University of Maryland
August 2021

Digital Archives Specialist Certificate
Society of American Archivists
May 2020

Bachelor of Science in Marketing
Fordham University
May 2006

Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies
Harvard University
January 2021

Master of Public Administration
Columbia University
May 2012

Publications

 

INTERVIEWS & CONVERSATIONS

The Violence of a Thousand Paper Cuts: Recognising Bias in the Archives A conversation between keondra bills freemyn and Rianna Walcott, June 2023→

The use of memory by women, femmes and queer folk in the African diaspora Reckon News feature, March 2023→

SCHOLARSHIP

Never the ‘same ole ground’: Legacy, Love and Liberation in the Archives of Black Women Writers Oxford Handbook on African American Women’s Literature, Forthcoming

Bearing Witness: James Presley Ball, Black Image Making, and the Promise of Freedom in the American West Curationist.org, August 2024→

Digital Archival Futures: Discoverability and Collaboration as Activism in a Post-Pandemic World A Charge for Change: A Selection of Essays from the 20th Biennial Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America, 2023→

2022 Web Archiving Survey Report, National Digital Stewardship Alliance, October 2023→

Expanding the Black Archival Imagination: Digital Content Creators and the Movement to Liberate Black Narratives from Institutional Violence Black Librarians in America: Reflections, Resistance, Reawakening, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing

CREATIVE WRITING

how will your black joy persevere into our future unknown? Black Joy Archive V. 3, May 2025→

Dispatches from the [Social] Distance OutWrite LGBTQ Festival Journal: Pandemic as Portal, August 2022→ .

Bedford-Nostrand (poem) DC Pride Poem-a-Day, June 2022→

Things You Left Behind (Poetry Collection) 67th Street Storytellers, May 2017→

color-3.png

Contact

 
unsplash-image-YIy1cd3xN4w.jpg

The Latest from the Black Women Writers Archive Instagram

 
Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965) at her desk at Freedom Magazine, 1952. Photographer unknown. From 1951–1953, Hansberry worked in Harlem at the weekly Black newspaper, Freedom, founded by Paul Robeson and Louis E. Burnham. At the newspaper,
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) posing outside of a house in Indiana, September 1971. Unknown photographer. Gwendolyn Brooks' archive is held at University of Illinois (Urbana, IL). Source: Gwendolyn Brooks Papers, Series 4: Photographs and Scra
Bonnie Greer (1948–) in 2002, photographed by Maud Sulter. American-born novelist, broadcaster, playwright, critic and columnist, Greer arrived in London in 1986 and became a British citizen in 1997. She rapidly established herself as a promi
Alice Walker (1944–) in 1980, photographed by Chester Higgins, Jr. Alice Walker's archive is held at Emory University (Atlanta, GA). Source: Britannica ImageQuest - for educational purposes only. [Image Description: Portrait of Alice Walke
Pastel drawing of Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) by Winold Reiss in 1925. Source: Fisk University Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee. Image retrieved from winoldreiss.org. [Image Description: Side profile color pastel drawing of Zora Neale Hurston
Playwright Lynn Nottage (1964-) photographed by Ken Collins. Source: In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights (Umbrage Editions, 2006) [Image Description: Lynn Nottage, a Black woman with locs, is looking into the camera while sitting i
Shirley Woodson (1936–) is a Detroit-based visual artist known for her figurative painting and collage works. In the 1960s and 70s, Woodson worked with Dudley Randall and his Broadside Press to create book covers and poetry broadsides for the c
Portrait of Jessica B. Harris, PhD (1948–) as a debutante with The Girl Friends, Inc. c.1965. Photographed by Monclova Photographers in Brooklyn, NY. Harris is author of the memoir My Soul Looks Back as well as twelve cookbooks. A preeminent s
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in 1977. Photograph by Erik Borg. Toni Morrison's primary archive is held at Princeton University (Princeton, NJ). Source: Middlebury Special Collections, Internet Archive. Digit
Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) with two of her children, Gillian and Alexia, featured in the Santa Cruz Sentinel in 1985. After the loss of her husband and the end of her tenure as poet laureate of Maryland, Clifton relocated to California for a p