History Of The Archive

Barutiwa Newspaper was founded on November 4, 1992 and officially published between 1993 and 1999 as a quarterly publication. Barutiwa, as a publication, endeavored to champion the voice of African American youth who did not enjoy a platform to promote their cause locally or nationally. Baruti Muhammad Kamau, the founder of Barutiwa Newspaper, believed the African American youth could have their voice promoted by publishing and distributing their opinions, poetry, drawings and self-styled news reports via his newspaper. Barutiwa Newspaper received national recognition in 1997 when the newspaper was officially listed in James P. Danky's "African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography". By June 1999, each issue of Barutiwa Newspaper had been deposited with the Library of Congress (Washington, DC) and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. These deposits help to ensure that the work of Barutiwa Newspaper would be saved for future generations of scholars to study and write about. Despite the efforts made to save Barutiwa's content for posterity, Baruti Muhammad Kamau wanted each issue archived online for existing generations to learn from. There was an unofficial effort to archive Barutiwa Newspaper at Barutiwa.com between 2000 and 2003. However, this first effort at archiving the publication online was short lived and unsuccessful.

On October 8, 2009 a new effort was launched by Baruti Muhammad Kamau to archive all published issues of Barutiwa Newspaper from 1992 to 1999. The Barutiwa Newspaper Archive project was initiated with a strategy to integrate it into Barutiwa.com Online where a community can develop around discussing its content. To date, the new project to archive Barutiwa Newspaper online has been much more successful than the first initiative in 2000. From October 2009 to December 2011, the first six issues of Barutiwa Newspaper has been published and archived on Barutiwa.com for reading and discussion purposes. The Barutiwa Newspaper Archive project is a major asset owned by Barutiwa Publishing Corporation and is a central component to the developing citizen journalism community featured at Barutiwa.com Online.

Baruti M. Kamau, President & CEO Barutiwa Publishing Corporation

Baruti Muhammad Kamau, an African-American, is the administrator of the archive and is currently the only person systematically reproducing the original content of Barutiwa Newspaper for online consumption. Kamau uses the original copies of Barutiwa Newspaper as reference for retyping the content accurately. The retyped content is stored in a .txt file and saved to an external USB storage device. The saved .txt file is recalled and the content is coded in HTML for display on the Web. Mr. Kamau has a professional background in clerical and communications work expanding 20 years. He is fluent in Microsoft Qbasic and HTML. He can also read PERL and PHP, programming languages that have become central to the architect of the World Wide Web. These skills have suited Kamau well for the professional undertaking of this great project. Review the following articles to learn more about Baruti M. Kamau and his work. A News Service For Young People by Rima Chaddha The Resume of Baruti M. Kamau

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