Members of the HBCU Radio Preservation Project team will present at a roundtable for the 2026 Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s Annual Conference in Norfolk, Virginia. “This Is My Jam!: Emerging Preservation Professionals & Memory Workers at the HBCU Radio Preservation Project” features team members Phyllis Jeffers-Coly (moderator), Kayla Foster, Breighlynn M. Polk, Vincentt Craft Sutton II, Olivia Green, Dana Green, and Chinyere Neal. The roundtable explores the HBCU RPP’s training and development program and how it has provided professional development opportunities and mentorship for early-career preservationists from diverse backgrounds and under-represented populations.
More specifically, the session highlights ways that training and development have informed the “jam” of project interns, fellows, and early career professionals. HBCU RPP staff will show how they have gained real-world, practical skills in audio and memory preservation. Presenters will describe how working on the project has offered them chances to affirm their raison d’etre and enjoy their jams—whatever they may look, taste, sound, and feel like as part of a new generation of Black memory workers.