About

Built to hold what we have carried.

The BlackPrint Project is a living archive of Black experience: the moment a story stops being a single memory and starts becoming something a whole community can learn from.

What Is The BlackPrint Project?

A place to preserve what we've lived.

The BlackPrint Project collects the lived experiences of Black people across the institutions and systems that shape everyday life: healthcare, education, work, military service, public safety, government, and foster care and child welfare. It preserves those stories with care, studies what they have in common, and turns what it learns into resources the next person can actually use.

It is not a survey. It is not a content platform. It is a place built to hold what we have carried, and to make sure none of it disappears.

Why It Exists

Isolated stories, told collectively, become something else.

Black experiences are too often treated as isolated stories when they are really part of larger, documentable patterns. One person's difficult hospital stay reads as a single hard day. A thousand similar stories read as a pattern in how a system treats Black patients. One person's exit from a job reads as a personal choice. A thousand similar exits read as a warning about what an institution is failing to do.

Many organizations are stepping back from talking about these realities directly, even as the need for truth, evidence, and practical resources has only grown. This is the moment to move from scattered testimony to structured knowledge, not to make a point, but to make something useful.

Our Mission

To preserve Black experiences, uncover meaningful patterns, elevate underrepresented voices, and transform lived experience into knowledge that strengthens individuals, families, organizations, and communities.

Our Vision

A future where Black experiences are documented, understood, valued, and used to create better outcomes for generations to come.

What Makes This Different

More than a story. More than a study.

Storytelling projects, oral-history archives, podcasts, and research studies have all given voice to real experience, and each one offers something valuable in its own right. Anthologies collect powerful stories. Research studies generate evidence. Podcasts reach an audience and build connection in the moment.

The BlackPrint Project connects storytelling, preservation, research, education, resources, publication, and legacy into one continuous body of work. A story becomes data. Data reveals a pattern. A pattern becomes insight. Insight becomes something the next person can actually use.

Our Principles

What guides the work

Truth

Every experience is documented honestly and with respect.

Preservation

Stories are kept safe for the generations who come after us.

Research

Individual experiences become evidence we can learn from together.

Action

Knowledge is only useful once it becomes a practical resource.

Legacy

This work is built to outlive any one of us who contributes to it.

Dignity

You remain the owner of your own lived experience, always.

Accessibility

What we learn is built to reach real communities and institutions, not stay locked away.

Protection

Consent, anonymity, and safety are built in from day one, not added later.

Our Seven Founding Sectors

Seven areas of Black life, one interconnected story

The BlackPrint Project launches across Public Safety & Justice, Healthcare, Military & Veteran Community, Education, Business & Economic Mobility, Government & Civic Service, and Foster Care & Child Welfare. Each sector is shaped by different institutions, but none of them are lived in isolation.

Explore Our Focus →

Your story matters. Your experience can help someone coming behind you.