On February 13, the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) will host Douglass Day, an event where students, staff, and community members will transcribe digitized records from 19th-century Black history. The gathering includes singing “Happy Birthday,” eating cake, and continuing transcription efforts.
“Douglass Day transforms the work of remembering into an act of resistance and renewal,” said Daina Ramey Berry, Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts. “By transcribing the Colored Conventions, we enter a conversation across time with ancestors who refused to be erased. UC Santa Barbara is honored to serve as the institutional home for this global initiative, uniting our community to amplify the enduring demand for ‘All Rights for All.’”
The event blends archival work with public engagement. Jim Casey, assistant professor of English at UCSB and director of the event, stated: “Douglass Day offers space for difficult conversations about hard histories, but we also want people to have a sense of these histories as moments of resilience and even joy.”
Douglass Day has taken place annually since 2017 and marks its tenth year in 2026. The event encourages participation from schools, churches, community centers, and other groups worldwide to transcribe materials related to Black history from the 1800s. Over its history, more than 1,000 events have been held with approximately 46,000 participants. This year’s live broadcast will originate from UCSB.
Casey highlighted that Douglass Day relies on collective effort involving faculty, staff, students across universities and a multi-campus research team working to gather dispersed archival materials. Long-time collaborators include Denise Burgher, Gabrielle Sutherland, Jenn Isasi, and P. Gabrielle Foreman at Penn State.
He emphasized collaboration over individual leadership: “It’s very much a collective, collaborative group that works on these projects.” Undergraduate and graduate students such as Eden Mekonen (Penn State) and Courtney Murray Ross (James Madison University) have played key roles.
UCSB now serves as the permanent base for Douglass Day’s organizing team. Future events are planned in partnership with campus entities like the UCSB Library and co-sponsors including departments of English and Black Studies as well as the Multicultural Center.
“UCSB Library is proud to partner with the Colored Conventions Project and our campus colleagues to co-host UCSB’s inaugural Douglass Day,” said University Librarian Todd Grappone. “This collaboration exemplifies how innovative digital scholarship and public engagement can advance the mission of both the library and the university. We hope this year’s events mark the beginning of a vibrant and enduring Douglass Day tradition at UCSB.”
The in-person gathering will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Multicultural Center Lounge at UCSB. Participants will use their own or borrowed laptops to transcribe documents via Zooniverse—a nonprofit platform assigning scanned document images for transcription.
“We welcome people who don’t work in archives or research libraries to immerse themselves in historical materials,” Casey said. “For a lot of participants, this is the first time they’ve ever encountered documents like these directly. It can be fun and captivating!”
Casey noted that accuracy is not the sole goal; increasing access is equally important by inviting non-historians to engage with original records.
The program will also be livestreamed so participants can connect with similar events elsewhere.
No specialized background is required; Douglass Day welcomes all ages. The initiative provides K–12 curriculum resources aligned with classroom standards for teachers interested in bringing transcription work into schools.
This year’s focus is on documents from Colored Conventions—19th-century gatherings where free or formerly enslaved African Americans debated rights issues such as voting rights and education.
“It is one of the largest racial justice movements in American history,” Casey said. “Beginning around 1830 and continuing to around 1900, the Colored Conventions involved tens of thousands of free and formerly enslaved African Americans who gathered to debate voting rights, citizenship, education, labor rights and more.”
According to Casey, these documents are spread across more than 100 libraries and archives; Douglass Day aims to make them more accessible through collective transcription efforts.
The theme “All Rights for All” draws on debates during Reconstruction about citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment—which established birthright citizenship along with civil rights protections against state infringement without due process or equal protection under law.
Additional activities include a quilting workshop hosted by UCSB Library’s Makerspace on February 10 where participants create patchwork pieces reflecting themes of citizenship; finished quilts will be displayed during Douglass Day.
Douglass Day coincides with Frederick Douglass’s chosen birthday—February 14—a date later adopted as an annual holiday that contributed to establishing Black History Month after his death. The event features performances alongside archival work.
In recent years an informal online birthday cake competition has emerged—with creative cakes commemorating figures or statistics related to transcription progress—demonstrating collective enthusiasm for preserving Black historical records.
