The Drum Newspaper established a collection at the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies

Eddie Ponds
Preparing to donate his 
newspaper collection
Photo Credit: Antoinette Harrell

The Drum Newspaper has donated 235 papers to the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies through the Nurturing Our Roots and Untold History Foundation, LLC. Dedicated to Eddie and Carrie Well Ponds and their families, the collection is named after them. This is the fifth African American collection to be established under the direction of Dr. Antoinette Harrell, a local historian, and genealogist committed to African American history preservation in the Florida Parishes. 

These papers date back to 1992.  The Ponds family began publishing their own newspaper in 1986. Eddie and his wife Carol attended a lecture by Julian Bonds at Southeastern University. Eddie noticed that there were no news media covering the event. That was the day and event that helped the Ponds family establish The Drum Newspaper.The collection was well received by Keith Finley, assistant director of Southeastern Louisiana University's Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies. Historically, there has been a piece of history missing from the collections. 

You can take pride in knowing that Dr. Harrell is changing the narrative and working tirelessly to ensure that the history of African Americans in Florida Parishes is included in these collections at the center. There were several Louisiana Florida Parishes covered in the paper. Sharon, his daughter, joined us and talked about how she photographed for the newspaper. The newspaper was a family business that she witnessed her parents working hard to maintain for decades. 

Dr. Harrell was happy to see that he finally took the step to preserve the events, history, and stories of the people who wrote about for decades. His paper will help to fill in the missing pieces of history for African American people in the Florida Parishes. Dr. Harrell was pleased to see he took the step to preserve the events, history, and stories of the people he had written about for decades. In the Florida Parishes, his paper will help to fill in the missing pieces of history related to African Americans.