Throughout the course of several weeks, a group of Duke students were tasked to search for and identify some of the first Black female pioneers in Duke athletics. Some of these athletes had been previously known; however, many of these firsts were not previously documented. As part of this final project, they utilized the Duke University Archives in the Rubenstein library to search through Media Guides and rosters to discover these talented females that are often left invisible.
From countless total hours within the archives, the students went through different boxes. Between the flawed method of photos from media guides, and then checking through the Directory of Black Undergraduate/Graduate Students and Faculty/Administry booklets from the Office of Minority Affairs, they dove into amplify the names of these figures. Here, each student writes about their own experiences within the archives.