South Phoenix is the historical home of many of the city’s Asian, African American, Hispanic/Latino and Native peoples. I think plenty of us are interested in these histories. Our students sure are.
On Wednesday, December 10, 2025, South Mountain Community College hosted a sneak peek look at a new collection of historical South Phoenix archival materials donated to the college under a new agreement with the local chapter of the Links organization.
Established in 1946, the Links, Incorporated is one of the nation's oldest and largest volunteer service organizations committed to enriching, sustaining and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African Americans and other people of African ancestry. The Links, Inc. Phoenix Chapter is one of the oldest chapters of the Links, Inc. in the American West. It was founded in 1952 by African American women in South Phoenix.
In 2024, the Links, Inc. Phoenix Chapter approached faculty at SMCC about donating more than 70 years of chapter historical documents, archival photos, and memorabilia to SMCC's growing community history archive. The chapter also considered partnerships with other institutions and museums, but selected SMCC as the right home for their historical collection.
In late 2024, members of the Links, Inc. Phoenix Chapter relocated all relevant materials for acquisition to a storage site at the college and managed by SMCC History professor Dr. Summer Cherland. Dr. Cherland also oversees the South Phoenix Oral History Project, which gives students a chance to explore and engage with historical and archival materials, and discover long lost stories and histories of the area.
“I had been told that ‘nobody would be interested in an exhibit on South Phoenix history’,” said Dr. Cherland. “This is a problem. South Phoenix is the historical home of many of the city’s Asian, African American, Hispanic/Latino and Native peoples. I think plenty of us are interested in these histories. Our students sure are.”
Supported by SMCC students, an enormous effort went into preparing the new addition to the archives. Over the Spring Break in March of 2025, students volunteered to sift through boxes of photographs, newspaper articles, bank records, committee meeting minutes and more. Additional community members, most of them Links themselves, also spent a collective 100 hours paring down about 300 cubic feet of material to make the collection manageable and meaningful.
During this process, the group discovered photographs and documents never seen before pertaining to Phoenix History, including a private scrapbook of Links founder Winstona Hackett, who was married to the principal of Dunbar School and was the daughter Phoenix Founder Winston Hackett.
“We’re now the stewards of this,” said Dr. Cherland. “We have to take it seriously.”
Dr. Cherland hopes that this continued work will set in motion the opportunity for future partnerships. In the meantime, the work on this new archive is heading towards being publicly accessible by Spring 2026.
