And now on the BBC World Service, it's time for the documentary.

I'm Maya Millett, and I'm speaking to the archivist, elevating the often overlooked

stories of African Americans. This is archiving Black America.

Why do you think history is important?

Oh, um, mainly because, yeah, you'll make the same mistakes over again if you don't know history or learn from history.

Not that that ever seems to do anybody any good.

I don't know that anybody pays attention.

I think history is very important because if you don't

understand your history you're doomed to repeat it. One of the challenges in

being African-American is a lot of times your history is cut off. It's either cut off because

records weren't kept or people had to move around a lot.

Our history is determined by what we leave behind, by letters and newspapers, by books and hard drives.

It's the knowledge we pass down the generations.

But what is recorded largely depends on what materials remain, and

whether the archivists, historians, and librarians, those tasked with preserving history and legacy, deemed these materials as worthy

of being saved.

And for a long time, centuries even, The materials and thus the histories of African Americans have

been often overlooked, often buried, and often hard to piece together. In any country where discrimination exists,

the official history is told by the victors.

What's lost in this process is incalculable,

because what we lose ultimately is the truth.

As a non-fiction editor and writer,

...