The Foy & Emma Lee McCarty Family Collection
The Foy and Emma Lee McCarty Collection is a significant archive of Black political and material culture assembled by a working-class Detroit family deeply attuned to the historical moment in which they lived. Foy and Emma Lee McCarty emigrated to Detroit from Lynch, Kentucky, in the 1930s as part of the Great Migration, joining countless Black Southerners seeking opportunity, safety, and self-determination in the industrial North.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, the McCarty's carefully collected print materials and ephemera that documented pivotal moments in American history and Black life. Their archive reflects an acute awareness of the importance of preservation—capturing the everyday ways Black communities witnessed, processed, and remembered national and global events. Collection highlights include historic issues of Jet and Life magazines covering the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the iconic Esquire magazine featuring Muhammad Ali on its cover.
Together, these materials offer an intimate record of how Black Americans encountered history through mass media, political imagery, and cultural representation. The collection stands as a testament to the role of ordinary citizens as historians and archivists of their own lives.
The Foy and Emma Lee McCarty Family Collection is held by the Black Artists Archive and is especially meaningful as Foy and Emma Lee McCarty are the maternal grandparents of BAA’s founder, Dr. Kelli Morgan. Their archive underscores the vital role of family-held collections in preserving Black historical memory and political consciousness across generations.
The Black Canon Music
Vinyl Legacies, BAA's inaugural archival initiative, focuses on the comprehensive cataloging, digitization, and preservation of The Black Canon's extensive collection of over 12,000 vinyl records showcasing Black music.
The Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd Literary Collection
The Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd Literary Collection is an important archive of African American poetry, literary periodicals, broadsides, and related printed materials that documents the depth and vitality of Black literary culture in Detroit while situating it within a broader national context. The collection reflects Detroit’s central role in 20th- and 21st-century Black literary production and includes works by both local and nationally significant figures, such as Jayne Cortez and Melvin B. Tolson.
Collection highlights include early publications by Broadside Press and its founder Dudley Randall, whose work was instrumental in shaping Black poetry and independent Black publishing during the Black Arts Movement, as well as early and representative works by Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd herself. Together, these materials trace networks of Black writers, publishers, and cultural workers committed to political engagement, artistic experimentation, and community-based literary production.
Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd is a distinguished poet, scholar, cultural activist, and educator, widely recognized for her contributions to African American literature and Black cultural studies. She is currently the Poet Laureate for the State of Michigan, and her career has been deeply rooted in Detroit’s literary and activist communities. This collection preserves Dr. Boyd’s personal and professional engagement with Black poetry as both a creative practice and a mode of cultural preservation, offering invaluable insight into the literary histories, movements, and voices that have shaped Black intellectual life in Detroit and beyond.
