Michelle Cook
On Saturday, November 16, 2024, at 1:00 pm, the Greater Kansas City Black History Study Group hosted its annual membership recruitment meeting and program at the Black Archives of Mid-America. In recognition of Veterans Day, our November meeting allowed us to learn about The Salus Populi Project founded to bring attention to the experiences of African American veterans of the Union Army. “The project is actively locating, digitizing, and creating a publicly accessible repository for the pension files of Missouri USCT servicemen in the seven counties known as Missouri’s “Little Dixie”: Boone, Calloway, Chariton, Clay, Lafayette, Howard, and Saline. By making these records accessible, the aim is to study how servicemen and their families remained vigilant in their fight for equality during the Civil War, Reconstruction, and beyond.”
Educator and historian, Ms. Michelle Cook, was our guest speaker. In 2022, after a decade of researching the history of marginalized groups in her own community, she co-founded The Salus Populi Project (SalusPopuli.org). Since 2016, Cook has presented her research findings in lectures to historical societies, community organizations, and museums whose missions support restorative justice initiatives. She is the Research Director for the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project, and possesses extensive experience in and knowledge of best practices in archival research, with a particular emphasis on the history of African Americans in Missouri. Attendees learned how these records may be used to explore the lived experiences of these soldiers and their families from enslavement to post-war occupations and challenges.