"Honoring the Past, Building Pathways for the Future"
ABOUT ME
DeLisa Minor Harris is the Director of Library Services at Fisk University, where she leads efforts to enhance both archival access and current information resources for the university community at the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library. In her role, she ensures that the library operates to support student, faculty, and staff scholarship and research by providing access to today’s information tools.
She also serves as Project Director for the Mellon-funded "Portal to Julius Rosenwald Fund Archives," a four-year initiative aimed at digitizing and expanding access to the Julius Rosenwald Fund Collection at Fisk.
In addition to her leadership roles, Ms. Minor Harris is pursuing a Ph.D. in Public History at Middle Tennessee State University. Her primary doctoral research centers on the life and legacy of Henrietta Crawley Myers, the longest female tenured director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, with a secondary focus on African American women’s contributions to historic preservation and the interpretation of historic sites.
Expertise Overview
Library Leadership & Strategy
Directing academic library services with a focus on access, equity, and digital transformation.
Experienced in staff development, grant management, and building sustainable infrastructures in higher education.
Archives & Special Collections
Skilled in archival preservation, description, and digitization of African American collections.
Led large-scale initiatives such as the Julius Rosenwald Fund digitization and the Fiskiana and Student Activism projects.
Expertise in metadata standards, finding aids, and public access platforms (Omeka, Alma/Primo, etc.).
Public History Practice
Experienced in curating exhibitions, public programming, and digital editions that bring marginalized histories to broader audiences.
Collaborator with community organizations, museums, and national initiatives to make history relevant and accessible.
Presenter and author on African American archives, Black librarianship, and inclusive historical interpretation.
Historic Preservation
Focused on preserving African American cultural heritage sites, materials, and memory.
Research and scholarship on HBCU architecture and the preservation of Rosenwald Schools.
Advocate for integrating archival materials and oral histories into preservation practice to tell fuller, community-centered narratives.
Experienced in working with institutions, preservation boards, and funders to safeguard historically significant collections and buildings.
“Without Ruth, there would be no record.”
― Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
Amplify Untold Stories
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Storytelling and Memory
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Preservation
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Collaboration with Community
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Amplify Untold Stories · Storytelling and Memory · Preservation · Collaboration with Community ·
Experienced Project Leadership
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Forging Future Pathways Forward
A Mellon-funded initiative led by the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library at Fisk University to digitize and expand access to the Julius Rosenwald Fund Archives. Guided by my vision and leadership, this project builds digital infrastructure, engages Rosenwald communities, and creates open tools that make history accessible for all
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Fisk Forever
As Project Co-PI, I led the Fisk Forever Project, a transformative effort to digitize and preserve over 21,000 pages from the Fiskiana Collection. This project built a sustainable digital repository, expanded access for students, faculty, alumni, and researchers.
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Becoming North Nashville
Becoming North Nashville, a project connecting Fisk University, MLK Jr. High School, and Pearl High School Archives to preserve and share North Nashville’s history through oral histories, photography, and student engagement.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
My work reflects a career-long commitment to shaping the future of archives and public history. I see myself as a thought leader, not because of the titles I’ve held or the boards I’ve served on, but because of the way I’ve approached leadership: as an act of building, connecting, and challenging institutions to do better. I’ve led projects that brought together archivists, historians, technologists, and communities who don’t always sit at the same table. In those moments, my role has been to listen closely, identify common goals, and create structures that move ideas into action.
As a leader, I’ve leaned into the hard questions—how do we balance access with preservation? how do we make sure our digital platforms serve communities who have been left out of archives? what does sustainability look like for small institutions with limited resources? My influence comes from being willing to wrestle with those questions in public and to create models others can adopt. Whether it’s redesigning metadata workflows to better reflect Black history, mentoring students to see themselves as knowledge producers, or pushing funders and partners to think more equitably about collaboration, I’ve consistently used my voice to expand the field’s imagination of what archives and public history can do.