P.O. And over time that has continued to grow.”Murray became director when Bridges retired in 2012. Murray said the first two directors of the agency were there for more than 50 years.“They also did an awful lot of good things in terms of creating the capacity that we have to preserve history and to continue to interpret it,” Murray said. It continues to affect all of us because it rolls into issues related to access to education, to pockets of economic prosperity as opposed to persistent areas of widespread poverty.”The Alabama Department of Archives & History was the nation’s first publicly funded, independent state archives agency, according to its website. His comments come one day after releasing a “Statement of Recommitment”, promising to turn a new leaf in the way the organization is preserving and telling African-American history.In the statement, Murray explained that the Alabama’s Department of Archives and History was founded in 1901, with preserving government records and confederate history in mind. The Alabama Department of Archives & History said in a statement today that for much of the 20th century it promoted a view of history that favored the … This is not a situation where only African Americans in the past paid a price for that. Beginning in the early 1900s, the Archives staff read through muster rolls, newspapers, governors' records, veterans' censuses, and state pension records to create a card file that was arranged … “Our agency has done a lot of reflection during that time and thought it appropriate and timely for us to make a statement about our perspective in terms of how our work relates to the issues that our country is dealing with right now, and how our agency had a distinctive role in the early 20th century in shaping some of the history that’s being talked about now.”The statement says systemic racism remains a reality in America even though most people believe in racial equality.“The decline of overt bigotry in mainstream society has not erased the legacies of blatantly racist systems that operated for hundreds of years,” the statement says.Derryn Moten, a professor of history and political science at Alabama State University, called the statement bold. The current constitution, ratified in 1901 and heavily amended, was intended to preserve white supremacy and suppress the black vote.“This isn’t about tearing down our state or the people who built Alabama,” Murray said. “But the reality is, some bad decisions were made along the way. “We know we lost out on an opportunity when that decision was being made in the early 1900’s” Murray said, “the good news is that it did not remain a permanent motive of our agency and over time our collecting work expanded dramatically”.Murray said there have been continuous efforts to update the museum especially in the 1980’s, but acknowledges there’s still much more to be done in order to paint a more inclusive and accurate picture of Alabama’s history.The statement also mentions the push for diversity within the mostly white department of archives staff and leadership. In the statement, Murray explained that the Alabama’s Department of Archives and History was founded in 1901, with preserving government records and … You can read its full statement Archives & History Director Steve Murray said he drafted the “Statement of Recommitment” that was approved by the agency’s Board of Trustees. I think it’s considerate. Check out our regular posts on For the Record, the ADAH records management blog. And we collectively are continuing to pay a price for that. The maps span 300 years, documenting not only Alabama's geographic past, but also that of the region, nation, and continent. Staff from the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) work with state and local agencies on records and information management and on the preservation of permanent records. Particularly the frankness and the candor for which this statement speaks about the history and the legacy of the Confederacy.”Archives & History said it is committed to developing programs and exhibits to promote a deeper understanding of the roots and consequences of racism. “For well over a half-century, the agency committed extensive resources to the acquisition of Confederate records and artifacts while declining to acquire and preserve materials documenting the lives and contributions of African Americans in Alabama.”While acknowledging its former role in presenting a distorted view of Alabama’s past, the agency pledged to continue efforts of the previous four decades to tell inclusive accounts of history.The statement comes as demands for racial justice and police reform sound across Alabama and the nation, a movement sparked by the police killing of “Like every other organization in the country and individuals we have been reflecting on the turmoil that we’ve seen in the last month and the calls for social justice and racial justice and how that discussion has spilled over into debate about public commemoration and kind of the historical landscape,” Murray said.