Getty Images, UNCF, and Stand Together partner to preserve historic images of Black life in America

Getty Images, a world leader in visual communications, is partnering with Stand Together and the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) to ensure more than 200,000 images from the archives of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are digitized to preserve Black history in America.

The partnership is the latest commitment by Stand Together to support and elevate the stories of Black Americans and work to ensure equal justice is truly for all. While some Black history in America is known, too much is still untold or misrepresented. This project will be crucial to preserving and strengthening learnings about history and culture. Heal America, a movement supported by Stand Together to fight racial injustice with love and redemption, will also promote the grant.

All HBCUs will be eligible to apply for the $500,000 Getty Images Photo Archive Grant, and two institutions will be selected. The grant deadline is September 30, 2021.

Leveraging the Getty Images platform, which is used by millions of artists, ad agencies, and filmmakers across the world, the program aims to support students and learning at HBCUs. Specifically, Getty Images will create a stand-alone photo collection that will be available for licensing. HBCUs will retain all copyrights and revenue from the photos will be distributed to HBCUs to continue impacting the grants program: Half of the proceeds will go directly to grant recipients; 30 percent will fund UNCF scholarships and scholarships at HBCUs; and 20 percent will be reinvested into the grant program. The goal is to create a self-sustainable program to ensure all HBCUs have an opportunity to have their content digitized and represented each year.

“At Getty Images we are excited about this partnership with the HBCU’s to digitise significant parts of their photographic archives,” said Mark Getty, co-founder and Chairman of Getty Images. “A photographic archive tells a story; it’s a visual history of who we are. As a society we can only learn from history if it tells everyone’s story. This partnership is an important step in that direction.”

Submissions for the Getty Images Photo Archive Grant for HBCUs will be judged by a prestigious panel of industry leaders including Dr. Deborah Willis, academic director and professor and chair at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and Renata Cherlise, founder of Blackarchives.co.

“Stand Together is excited to build on our longstanding support for the HBCU community by participating in this important project alongside Getty Images and UNCF,” said Stand Together CEO Brian Hooks. “By bringing images from HBCU archives to millions more people, the new curation will help celebrate the unique contributions that HBCUs, their graduates, and faculty members have made and continue to make to our country.”

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