PITTSBURGH – WQED was selected as one of 36 national humanities projects to receive a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to digitize, catalog and make accessible nearly 2,000 of its media assets relating to the Black experience in Pittsburgh, Pa. WQED’s “Pittsburgh Black History” and “’Black Horizons’ Digitization Project” will preserve these assets for generations to come and add to the growing number of searchable, digitized resources.
WQED’s archive of Pittsburgh Black history will join other public media stations’ preserved content on the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB). This will provide a fuller understanding of developments in America’s Black history by revealing aspects of local histories, from laypeople to leaders, covered in WQED’s programs.
“We are grateful to the NEH for its recognition of the value and lasting legacy of these programs,” said WQED Supervising Producer Minette Seate. “Pittsburgh’s Black community has long played a vital role in shaping the history of the region and, really, the entire country. Now everyone will have a chance to know these stories.”
“NEH is proud to support exemplary education, preservation, media, research, and infrastructure projects that expand resources for Americans, support humanities programs and opportunities for underserved students and communities, and deepen our understanding of our history, culture, and society,” said NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo).
This funding cycle from NEH includes the first round of awards made under NEH’s new Spotlight on Humanities in Higher Education grant program. This program was developed as part of the agency’s American Tapestry: Weaving Together Past, Present, and Future initiative, a wide-ranging special initiative at NEH that leverages the humanities to strengthen our democracy, advance equity for all, and address our changing climate. WQED’s project, in part, is also being funded by this initiative and was selected to help emphasize the role of the humanities in tackling contemporary social challenges.
WQED will digitize approximately 2,000 media assets, including episodes of “Black Horizons,” “Horizons,” and “OnQ,” documentaries produced under the “Black Horizons” umbrella, and other WQED programs that covered Pittsburgh’s Black community. This project would preserve the content and create searchable metadata related to the history and lived-experience of the Black community in our region. These programs helped to bring the lives of Black Pittsburghers into focus, exploring a range of topics, while elevating the voices of the region on the issues of the day.
Premiering in 1968 shortly after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, “Black Horizons” became one of the first, and eventually the nation’s longest running minority affairs program during its 42-year run. More than just a forum for the community, the series served as a training ground for Black talent in front of and behind the camera. Related productions explored Pittsburgh’s Black culture, experience, history and issues affecting the community. Once digitized, this archive, much of which is on outmoded videotape formats, will be an invaluable resource for understanding the history and contribution of Pittsburgh’s Black community and how it informs the overall Black experience in America.
The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a project of WGBH in Boston and The Library of Congress (LOC) to preserve for posterity the most significant public television and radio programs of the past 70 years. WQED will work with AAPB to ensure that these assets are saved, made available to future generations, and enrich this source for accessing American political, social, and cultural history and creativity.
This project has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
About WQED
WQED was an experiment in educational community-supported television that was the forerunner to PBS. Today, WQED is a multimedia powerhouse that is as much a part of Pittsburgh as the three rivers. WQED is WQED-TV (PBS); WQED World; WQED Create; WQED Showcase; WQED PBS KIDS Channel; Classical WQED-FM 89.3/Pittsburgh; Classical WQEJ-FM 89.7/Johnstown; the Pittsburgh Concert Channel at WQED-HD2 (89.3-2FM) and online; streaming and apps, and WQED Interactive.
WQED is a premier leader in broadcast and digital video production, producing socially relevant, historical, arts, entertainment and educational programming resources. WQED’s Learning Neighborhood model creates an education continuum dedicated to serving our youngest neighbors through Ready To Learn programming, while engaging high school students learning filmmaking and exploring employment opportunities through the WQED Film Academy.
About National Endowment for the Humanities
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov.