Observance
Foundation Day
July 14, 2026
Private observance. Sacred date. Not a public event.
The mini-conference and panel discussion originally planned for July 2026 have been postponed to 2027. The Society is directing its full effort this year toward the American Archivist submission, the Fulbright application, and the ASA New Orleans presentation. Foundation Day 2026 is observed as the Society's second anniversary: a record of what was built, not a public event.
A Community Observance
Find Your Tree
On July 14, wherever you are, we invite you to make a small pilgrimage. Find a sacred tree in your landscape. Stand with it. Leave something behind.
The Iroko Historical Society takes its name and its animating presence from Iroko — the great forest elder of West and Central Africa, and a living Orisha in the Lucumí tradition. Trees of this kind exist across the Afro-Atlantic world under different names and in different traditions. You may know yours as:
- Iroko (Milicia excelsa) — West and Central Africa
- La Ceiba (Ceiba pentandra) — Cuba, the Caribbean, Central America
- Any tree that has called to you, sheltered you, or holds significance in your tradition or your memory
The offering is yours to determine. It may be water, a flower, a moment of silence, a word spoken aloud, or simply your presence. What matters is the intention: to recognize that the living world holds memory, and that some of that memory belongs to us.
If you photograph your tree, consider sharing it with the IHS Visual Ethnography archive. Contact the Society to submit.
Year Two — Institutional Milestones
What the Society Built
Year Two marks the transition from founding to infrastructure. The Society moved from established intention to deployed systems: a governed collections platform, a published and deposited vocabulary, and a live searchable archive.
Institutional Developments
IHS Infrastructure
- Per Medjat launched — the Society's governed collections interface at medjat.irokosociety.org. Houses both the Medjat Library and Medjat Archives under the six-tier Iroko Framework access system.
- Iroko Framework deposited to Zenodo — vocabulary formally registered with a persistent DOI. DOI (Vocabulary): 10.5281/zenodo.19157679 · DOI (White Paper): 10.5281/zenodo.18826673
- Ewé Sacred Plant Database pilot live — 50 structured ethnobotanical records at medjat.irokosociety.org/ewe/, integrating Iroko Framework governance with Darwin Core and SKOS vocabularies.
- Medjat Library active — Zotero-powered research catalog (69+ items) at medjat.irokosociety.org/library/, covering Afro-Atlantic sacred knowledge systems.
Founder’s Contributions to the IHS Research Program
Scholarly & Professional Developments
- Verger Ewé Dataset (LS563 Linked Data, University of Alabama) — 1,195 RDF triples across 13 accepted records from the Tulane Herbarium, integrating Darwin Core with the Iroko Framework iroko-ewe module. Named the University of Alabama Outstanding Student Paper, 2026.
- “Havana to the Sabine” — article in active revision for The American Archivist (vol. 90.1). Phase Three of the Trafficking in Slave Paper research program.
- Entre el espíritu y la custodia — invited presentation, IV International Meeting on the Preservation of Documentary Heritage, Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba José Martí, Havana, September 2025.
- Dr. E. J. Josey and Effie Lee Morris Scholarship (BCALA), 2025–2026.
- MLIS candidate, Data Science & Analytics concentration, University of Alabama. Funded via the IHS research program.
Community Photography — 2026
The annual community photography call documents sacred spaces, material culture, and community life across the Afro-Atlantic world for the Society’s Visual Ethnography archive. Contact the Society to submit.