New director of Black Archives plans to make history relevant

By St. Clair Murraine
Outlook Staff Writer

Timothy Barber has fond memories of his days as a student at FAMU. In particular, he recalls conversations he had with former history professor Theodore Hemmingway.

They would go back and forth about what Barber knew about Black history in his native Miami. He gave himself away when he was stumped in search of an answer about The Black Archives History and Research Foundation of South Florida, which was founded in 1977 by Dorothy Jenkins Fields.

“I couldn’t tell him anything,” is how Barber remembers responding.

He just didn’t know that the Black Archives existed in his backyard.

“No one. No teacher, no principal. No one said, ‘there is a place that preserves the history and the accomplishments of Blacks in Miami,’ ” Barber said during a recent interview. “That was tragic for me to understand; how could I go to Miami and not be aware of this.”

The queries by Hemmingway, who died in 2006, set Barber on a path to find out what he was missing. He has not stopped researching and today is known as one of Florida’s top historians.

Barber, 48, returns to FAMU on July 1 to begin his role as the new director of the Meek-Eaton Black Archives Research Center and Museum. Wanting to change perceptions of history, one of his priorities is to make sure that students and the community at large increase their engagement with the archives. 

“We have to find a way to make history relevant for everybody,” Barber said. “There is always something you can learn from the past. I found that once I began to understand history my level of discernment of world issues became broader. It’s because you begin to understand why some things happen the way they have.”

Barber is returning to Tallahassee from Miami, where he spent the last 13 years as director of the same Black Archives that he didn’t know about as a younger man. He is also the creator and founding director of the Historic Lyric Theater Cultural Arts Complex, according to a release that announced his hire.

Up until this past spring, Barber also was an adjunct history professor at Florida Memorial.

To make his point about making history relevant, Barber mentioned the evolution of Disney World and changes that makes it a top attraction more than five decades after it was founded.

“That’s what we want to bring,” Barber said. “We want people to continue to come back. We want to grow our audience, we want to grow our membership. We want to try to do things that push the envelope on history.

“One thing I want to bring back with me to Florida A&M is making the Meeks-Eaton Archives and Museum not just a building that people on campus walk by and point at, but making sure that people want to come in to see something different; something that relates to what they are going through today. That’s what’s it’s about.”

Barber credits historian and FAMU professor Larry Rivers for sparking his interest in history. Rivers is known for using current events to make his lectures relevant.

“The way he taught was mesmerizing,” Barber said. “I was never exposed to a Black man that had so much knowledge. My mind was blown. The information he had; my mind was just blown away that there was somebody who knew so much about African American history.”

Barber isn’t the only one who has found his method of teaching impactful, Rivers said.

“We are out here to do our best to instill in young people that they can be whatever they want to be and that history is significant,” Rivers said. “History teaches us not only about the past but what we can do to the make the future even better.”

There were plenty others who poured into Barber. He recalled how an internship was arranged by Elizabeth Dawson for him to work at The Black Archives History and Research Foundation of South Florida. Professors Titus Brown and David Jackson also influenced him, Barber said.

History professor Darius Young has been interim director at the Meek-Eaton Black Archives for the past year.  

“Tim Barber brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise to the Meek-Eaton Black Archives, one of the greatest treasures on our campus,” said Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Maurice Edington. “We are looking forward to him building on its rich legacy, further developing this resource to its fullest potential.”