PACSCL developed an application to the Council on Library & Information Resources in 2021 for a different version of Black Joy & Resilience. This project would have digitized almost 150,000 pages from sources documenting Black joy & resilience from over ten different Philadelphia-are institutions.  Each contributing institution selected items to be included.

That grant application was rejected.  When PACSCL applied successfully to NHPRC for the current grant, NHPRC limited the project to about 150 sources. The BJ&R team then returned to the 2021 contributors, and asked who would be interested in contributing content to this new iteration.  All content described here was selected by the contributing institutions.