Unveiling Private Histories: Ethical and Theoretical Implications of Transforming African American Home Movies from Personal Keepsakes to Public Artifacts

Unveiling Private Histories:Ethical and Theoretical Implications of Transforming African American Home Movies from Personal Keepsakes to Public Artifacts Elizabeth Patton (bio) One summer afternoon, I had the privilege of conducting a dynamic and constructive phone interview with Ms. Williams, whose family's private home movies are a part of the Great Migration Home Movie Project at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).1 The project is a public program for digitizing analog audiovisual media. Ms. Williams's collection comprises over thirty home movies, predominantly shot on 8mm and 16mm color film during the 1960s and 1970s. At first, she had End Page 184 approached the NMAAHC to digitize and preserve her fragile 16mm films to ensure their longevity. Many of the films offer a fascinating glimpse into spaces of leisure, relaxation, and celebration, providing a window into the African American experience during a time when segregated recreational spaces were prevalent. Since its founding in 2016, the NMAAHC has gathered and conserved a substantial number of these African American home movies. Donated by families to the NMAAHC, many of these films, like those of Ms. Williams, provide a valuable historical resource. As one of many children featured in these moving reels, Ms. Williams deeply appreciated their emotional value. These films chronicled special occasions such as birthdays, holidays, and memorable family vacations to the beach. They represented more than individual memories; they depicted slices of African American life, offering insights into traditions and leisure activities rarely highlighted in mainstream narratives of the civil rights era. She also recognized their potential significance in shedding light on African American history. Initially, she was reluctant to donate the films because of privacy concerns; however, with careful consideration, she generously agreed to donate them to the Center for the Digitization and Curation of African American History at NMAAHC. There was one crucial condition. She wanted to limit their circulation by retaining the ability to grant permissions for their use in research or public display. As most of the adults depicted in the films were now deceased, she carried a mix of nostalgia and ethical concern—a desire to preserve their memory while also being conscientious about the implications of sharing their personal experiences with the world. Historical research and public exhibition, she believed, could open the potential for misinterpretation by researchers and public audiences. My initial conversation with Ms. Williams shifted my perspective on agency, privacy, and interpretation in using home movies as historical sources. Prior to considering this case, I had not considered the ethical tightrope I must walk as a media historian—respecting her family's legacy while navigating the responsible use of these rare cinematic glimpses into African American history. Ms. Williams's home movie collection typifies the concept of orphan films—those cinematic materials that are often unwatched, undistributed, inaccessible, or lost.2 In this essay, I consider the ethical and theoretical implications of viewing, understanding, and writing about content that is often undistributed, lost, or inaccessible to the public. These home movies, as intimate portrayals of life, are brought out of their original contexts, raising questions about the nature of personal memory, the production of history, and the role that home movies can play in bridging the gap between the two. On an ethical level, transforming private memories into public narratives brings to the fore ethical dilemmas relating to representation and interpretation. End Page 185 Despite their deeply personal and veiled nature, home movies "are shaped by the public conventions of the image" and "shared social and cultural understandings."3 Despite shared understandings and representational conventions, publishing African American home movies originally intended for private consumption for public viewership and critique involves a complex process of transformation that "changes viewers into spectators who cannot participate in their original meaning and will see the films in a different light."4 Consequently, media historians must consider their interpretative power over these sources. The context that originally framed these narratives might be lost or misunderstood, which can risk essentializing Black leisure culture through a lens influenced by dominant white narratives and perspectives. In the specific context of African American life, essentializing Black leisure culture can erase nuanced lived experiences...