Howard University has received a $2 million grant to digitally archive thousands of Black newspapers.

According to NBC News, the grant was awarded by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation and will make the Howard University Black Press Archives available to anyone online. The collection will include over 2,000 newspapers from the African diaspora and the United States. The world will have access to iconic Black publications like The Chicago Defender, The Amsterdam News, The Norfolk Journal and Guide and The Washington Afro American.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the founder of the Center for Journalism and Democracy at Howard, said in a statement, “We were only getting a very one-sided version of our history. Newspapers cataloged the day-to-day in our society to help us understand the politics of our society, the culture of our society. The fuller version of all that can be found within the Black archives at Howard. So, it’s extremely exciting that this money is going to help preserve this precious archive, but also make it accessible to millions of people across the world.”

She continued, “When we think about how white newspapers have shared our collective understanding of the world, that is a very narrow view of what was happening,” Hannah-Jones said. “And so having access to how Black newspapers covered colonialism, for instance, or how Black newspapers covered apartheid, or the Black freedom struggle in America ... that just gives us a fuller picture, gives us a greater understanding.”

Howard University is aiming to digitize 60 percent of the 100,000 individual newspapers within five years. However, due to copyright and other legal issues, the remaining 40 percent will be available only at Howard.