This Juneteenth, as America reflects on the legacy of slavery and Black resilience, artificial intelligence is playing a role in uncovering and preserving Black history. From digitizing centuries-old records to creating interactive family archives, AI is helping fill gaps in a history that has often been erased or ignored.
Ancestry.com: AI helps surface vital records of enslaved people
Genealogy site Ancestry.com used AI to make historical records of enslaved people more accessible. Last year, Ancestry.com released a collection of pre-1870 newspaper records related to more than 183,000 enslaved people with details that were previously scattered or lost including names, ages, and locations.
“Family history research can be challenging for Black Americans due to the long history of slavery in the United States and the lack of documentation about those who were enslaved,” said Nicka Sewell-Smith, professional genealogist and Senior Story Producer at Ancestry, in the press release.
AI helped by scanning hard-to-read newspaper archives and linking names to other databases, making it easier for descendants to trace their ancestors.
This month, Ancestry.com used “advanced technology” to expand its Articles of Enslavement collection, adding more than 110,000 newly digitized newspaper articles from 1788 to 1867. These records — now totaling more than 750,000 names — include ads for runaway slaves, sales notices, and other painful but crucial documents.
Griot & Grits: Turning family stories into AI-powered documentaries
Beyond documents, AI is also helping preserve oral histories. The Griot & Grits project, a collaboration between Raleigh, North Carolina-based storyteller Ty McDuffie and Red Hat engineer Sherard Griffin, is using AI to turn family photos, videos, and interviews into professional-style documentaries.
McDuffie told the ABC affiliate in Raleigh,”When I lost my mother, and I was speaking to one of her cousins, she said, ‘There’s only a few of us left, and when we’re gone, all the family stories are gone.’ That kind of sparked the fire underneath me to preserve our family history.”
The project now has backing from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which plans to incorporate its archives into AI-powered documentaries.
Challenges of using AI for Black history-related work
While AI offers exciting possibilities, experts caution that for AI to truly serve cultural preservation, it must be developed with cultural awareness and in collaboration with the communities it aims to represent.
Challenges such as AI hallucination, misrepresentation of historical facts, and inconsistencies in systems like facial recognition across different populations underscore the need for human review and diverse perspectives in AI development. Ancestry’s Sriram Thiagarajan told Business Insider last year that, “LLMs themselves are evolving every week or every two weeks so you have to be constantly curious and can’t assume you learned one thing or know how something works.”
Despite these challenges, the innovative applications of using AI for work related to Black history and culture can help in strengthening connections to the past and ensuring that invaluable traditions endure.