Memory is the bedrock on which justice, belonging, and a shared civic life are built. The repositories that hold these memories—these stories—are incredibly fragile. But they are also foundational. Institutional archives, family photo albums, personal cloud storage, a micro-SD card abandoned at the bottom of a plastic container twenty years ago: each of these sustains memory.
Across our program areas, the Henry Luce Foundation supports organizations and networks that create, preserve, and share knowledge. Ensuring this knowledge remains intact and accessible for future generations is a priority for the leaders of the projects and organizations we support.
In this edition of Story as Legacy, we look to visionaries considering the historical record, insisting that the past be expansive and alive. How do we safeguard memory? How do we ensure the stories we tell are robust and just? How does this inform our future?
The South Asian American Digital Archive deepens the story of American migration, preserving personal and collective histories that challenge narrow narratives of belonging in this country. In Kenya, the Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT) and its network of partner organizations gather intergenerational knowledge among pastoralists, honoring traditions that have long flourished outside state archives and written records. In Ghana, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences and Molex Foundation highlight women whose scholarship and leadership might otherwise go undocumented—ensuring STEM’s future carries the full weight of those who shape it.
We also hear from artists and scholars who suggest that memory thrives in plurality, shaped by overlapping and sometimes conflicting lived perspectives. The 500 Capp Street fellows and Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellows explore how archives—both personal and institutional—can unsettle fixed narratives and make room for experimentation and critique. Rick Williams and the People of the Sacred Land insist that, even when records are missing, memory endures. And the podcast When We All Get to Heaven brings light to the voices of queer faithful during the AIDS crisis, preserving sacred testimony in a time when erasure threatened both lives and legacy. Together, these efforts remind us that preservation is not nostalgia but rather a civic responsibility.
Lastly, we’re thrilled to include a curated reading list created in collaboration with The Center for Fiction. With selections inspired by this edition of Story as Legacy, we hope this collaboration inspires exploration outside of this webpage and beyond Luce’s grantmaking work.
At a time when many question what binds us, archives remind us that the construction of public memory is a civic responsibility. Archives offer a space where truth is tended, plural memory is honored, and the right to narrate is not granted by absolute power but afforded to all who are willing to remember. This edition of Story as Legacy asks us to recognize that what we inherit tomorrow depends on the commitments we make today.
Jacob Entenman
Content Manager, Henry Luce Foundation
