Linda's Blogspot

  Staying Connected: UN Open Source Week 2026 ​Even if you aren't attending in person at the United Nations Headquarters, the global open-source community is making this year’s summit remarkably accessible. Whether you are observing from home or looking for ways to engage with the NYC tech scene, there are plenty of pathways to participate. ​ Participating Virtually ​The UN is providing a comprehensive digital window into the week’s proceedings. If you aren't registered for the in-person sessions, you can still catch the core pillars of the conference: ​ Official Livestream: Head over to UN Web TV to watch the key sessions. Major tracks including Open Source x AI (June 23) , DPI Day (June 24) , and OSPOs for Good (June 25) will be broadcast to a global audience. ​ Program Access: The official event portal offers the full agenda and speaker list, allowing you to follow the discourse on digital sovereignty, AI governance, and infrastructure development in real-ti...

A Turning Point in Intellectual History: The 1956 Paris Congress ​In September 1956, the amphitheaters of the Sorbonne in Paris became the stage for a seismic event in the history of global liberation. The First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists, organized by the visionary publishing collective Présence Africaine, convened sixty-three delegates from twenty-four countries. It was a meeting that sought to do more than simply critique the status quo; it aimed to decolonize the mind and establish a new, sovereign cultural identity for the Black world. ​ The "Cultural Bandung" ​Often referred to as a "cultural Bandung" after the 1955 Asian-African Conference, the Congress was a formal assertion that political independence was incomplete without cultural self-determination. Under the leadership of Alioune Diop and a dedicated organizing committee, the event brought together disparate voices—diasporic, African, and Caribbean—to wrestle with the weight of ...

  Bridging Cultures: The Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor ​For those of us dedicated to documenting cultural heritage and community histories, landmarks often serve as far more than mere infrastructure. They act as physical anchors for the intellectual and social movements we study. In the heart of Paris, the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor is a profound example of how urban space can honor the legacies of figures who built bridges between continents and ideologies. ​A Landmark with a Purpose ​Crossing the Seine to link the Musée d'Orsay on the Left Bank with the Jardin des Tuileries on the Right Bank, this elegant, single-span footbridge is a masterpiece of modern engineering. Renamed in 2006 to mark the centenary of Léopold Sédar Senghor ’s birth, the bridge serves as a highly visible tribute to a man who fundamentally reshaped the dialogue between French and African literature and politics. ​ Who Was Léopold Sédar Senghor? ​To understand why this bridge carries his name...

  Paris and the Birth of a Movement: Aimé Césaire’s Intellectual Awakening ​For many of us who work in digital archives and cultural documentation, Paris often appears not just as a city, but as a crucible where global movements are forged. Few figures illustrate this better than the Martinican poet, playwright, and politician Aimé Césaire . ​When Césaire arrived in Paris in the 1930s as a young student at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, he stepped into a space that was simultaneously the seat of a colonial empire and an intellectual laboratory for those questioning it. It was here, in the heart of the "City of Light," that Césaire, alongside figures like Léopold Sédar Senghor (of Senegal) and Léon-Gontran Damas (of French Guiana), nurtured the Négritude movement. ​The Crucible of Négritude ​In the quiet corners of Paris, far from the Caribbean and African landscapes they championed, these students founded the literary review L’Étudiant noir ("The Black Student"). T...

  Mapping Memory: A Field Documentation Walk through Paris ​In the landscape of historical memory, some stories remain vibrant, while others fade into the shadows of administrative record-keeping. As we gather in Paris this July for Wikimania, I am inviting fellow researchers, archivists, and cultural explorers to join me in an act of historical stewardship: a walking tour designed to bridge the gaps in our shared digital record. ​This is an invitation to explore Paris not as a city of static monuments, but as a living archive of the African and African American Diaspora—a space where poets, painters, and thinkers came to forge new ways of being. ​ The Geography of Belonging ​Our journey begins with the concept of "belonging." For artists like Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin,  Paris was not an escape; it was a sanctuary where the social and racial constraints of the United States fell away, allowing for a profound transformation in perspective. ​We will walk the stree...

  Beyond Galveston: The Radical Reconstruction at the Red River ​While the nation’s focus during Juneteenth often centers on the momentous arrival of General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas, in 1865, the true breadth of emancipation was felt through thousands of localized, often perilous, confrontations across the South. To understand the full scope of this transformation, we can turn our gaze toward places like Coushatta, Louisiana , where the end of slavery was not merely a proclamation, but a visceral, dangerous dismantling of a centuries-old system of violence. ​ The Geography of Emancipation ​If Galveston represents the symbolic "top-down" announcement of freedom, the story of Marshall Harvey Twitchell in Red River Parish, Louisiana, represents the "on-the-ground" enforcement of that freedom. ​In the immediate post-war period, the Freedmen’s Bureau acted as a necessary buffer between formerly enslaved people and a planter class desperate to maintain the...