The "Bridges That Carried Us Over Project: Documenting Black History in the IE" was founded by Wilmer Amina Carter and Ratibu Jacocks in 2007. Led by the Wilmer Amina Carter Foundation, this project was one of the first documentation projects in the Inland Empire to capture the stories, experiences, and history of the Black community in San Bernardino and Riverside counties through oral history interviews.
In 2020, California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB), University of Redlands, and University of California, Riverside (UCR) joined the initiative, and project efforts were expanded to more comprehensively capture the history of the Inland Empire's Black community through the identification and preservation of historical collections and materials. Using these historical resources, students from CSUSB and University of Redlands began creating social media posts to showcase Black history in our region. These posts now form the basis for this social media archive that can be used by students, educators, and the public to explore the significant contributions of the Black community to the development of the Inland Empire.
All social media posts and descriptive metadata found on this site were created by CSUSB and University of Redlands students.