|
|
| |
This is a website developed by Abdul Alkalimat and Associates. The purpose is
twofold: to serve the community and to build a data set for research.
Cyber Church started at the
University of Toledo , and has now moved to the
University of Illinois. It is maintained by students in African American Studies
as part of academic research in the
Department of African American Studies at UIUC. It is
also maintained as part of the mission of
UIUC
as a land grant institution, to serve the community with research for social
progress, economic development and an increase in the quality of life for people
in the society.
On the left frame of the website are resources that relate to the religious
life of the African American community. The church is the foundational
institution and plays multiple roles in addition to religion - leadership,
economics, networking, cultural expression and creativity, etc. The study of the
African American church is important for Black Studies.
City by city, state by state, our plan is to map Black churches on the website
in their thousands. This will only happen when people in the community rise to
the challenge of becoming community based researchers in the interest of the
institutional resources of their community. The main part of the website is the
ability to search the data base of churches. The main approach is to find a
city, then configure the data as you want it displayed before calling the
information forward. The site is being updated frequently so check back often.
This project is connected to a new movement, the
eBlack Studies movement . This is a major advance that will help
legitimate digital scholarship as the cutting edge of 21st century research in
Black Studies. This site is being supported by the
Department of African
American Studies and
Community Informatics at the Graduate School of Library and
Information Science.
We are interested in recruiting people to become cyber organizers in their local
community to build this website. We are especially reaching out to people in
Black Studies academic programs and churches who want to join the mass migration
into cyberspace. Please contact us to get involved.
If you are a research person contact us to gain access to the data set we are
building.
|
|
|
|
ABDUL ALKALIMAT / MCWORTER @ ILLINOIS
DOT EDU
|
|