The Black Baltimore Digital Database (BBDD) is a collaborative and counter-institutional initiative dedicated to preserving and protecting the diverse data of local archival projects, spanning traditional and experimental approaches. Focused on showcasing the rich, often under-recognized contributions of Black communities in and around Baltimore, Maryland, BBDD serves as a vital resource for amplifying these stories. By providing access, fostering engagement, and empowering citizens, neighbors, and visitors, the database creates a dynamic space where history, culture, and agency intersect, ensuring that these invaluable narratives are celebrated and safeguarded for future generations.

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The walls in our headquarters are reserved for artists and artworks that are rooted in archival research and works that reflect the plait of the Black Experience: past, present and future. We invite local, national and international visual artists to present their work through solo or curated group exhibitions. These exhibitions assist in facilitating discourse about the importance of self preservation and showcases art as tool to demonstrate the benefits and value of safekeeping one’s personal data for future generations to have access to.

Gallery art exhibitions

This monthly community session will have various themes centered around assisting Baltimore’s Black citizens to archive their own history for themselves, first and foremost. Generating a vault of historical content owned exclusively by its author, aka, you and yours.

We have created an archiving platform that will make it easy for citizens across generations the ability upload valued material that they can then share with other family members or the general population - it’s their choice. In an effort to emphasize the importance of individuals being able to secure their data without the safekeeping of institutions. This unique software design will

Beginning in April 2025, you will be able to start your journey into your family’s BBDD account by attending an introductory session at our CharmCCC headquarters, where you will be able to create a profile and learn about user categories, the database’s structure, and how to use tags and others tools to make it easy to upload, search and recover personal data. Each monthly session will focus on a particular theme, and will be lead by Kameron Robinson, the database’s lead engineer and Diamon Fisher, our Community Engagement Manager.

keeping the culture

BBDD values exchange with like-minded organizations that share space with the Black community. We believe that to grow collectively, we must support each other on a broader level while also safeguarding the importance of our mission.

When opportunity allows, we welcome collaboration with other local, national and international archive-based program with initiatives focused on community building as a direct approach to strengthening overlooked populations in cities around the world.