Wikipedia is a large source of information to virtually every subject. But for long, the online encyclopedia lacks a lot of history, especially if in the subject of black generations.
Wikipedia's readers come from mostly white generations, and for that most articles are written about things that interest them. "So a lot of black history is left out," said James Hare, President of Wikimedia D.C., the local branch of the foundation that runs Wikipedia.
Students and faculty members at Howard University that preeminent historically black higher education institutions, set out to fill in the gaps by putting some tints to Wikipedia's overpopulated 'whites'.
"You'd think that, 'Oh, Wikipedia has articles on everything,' but for anything having to do with a marginalized community, there's a lot of gaps," Hare said.
Both academics and researchers working with the foundation agree that the online encyclopedia suffers from a dearth of information about black history, and doesn't have well-known names and events of slavery and the civil rights movement, for example.
As the organizing team came up with a list of entries to be expanded, they are also looking to put many more forgotten figures that were completely absent from the Wikipedia database.