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Historical Consulting & Oral Histories

stories are life

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Jade r rogers

LegaSeays Founder

Jade R Rogers is a sought-after speaker, historian, oral historian, cultural curator, and nonprofit leader who turns archives into action and community.Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of The House of Afros, Capes & Curls, she works at the crossroads of Black history, education, and popular culture—curating exhibitions on Black Homesteading and Nebraska’s Black experience; consulting for documentaries, theater, and the board-game industry; and keynoting on how stories shape belonging and futures.Her writing includes “Silent No More: Rediscovering Black Presence in the Renaissance” (Enchanted Living, Winter 2024); the 2022–2023 volumes Juneteenth Steampunk Tea Party: A Celebration of Black Victorian Excellence—Photos & Reflections; and the forthcoming coffee-table book Book of Wonder: Captured Joy.Recognized by Good Morning America & Marvel as a Marvel Superfan and a graduate of Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women, Jade brings 20+ years of teaching and community engagement to every stage.


Selected Past Engagements

  • Fandom as Freedom: How Black Nerds Reimagine Community

  • Blueprints for Tomorrow: A Beginner’s Guide to Afrofuturism

  • What We Weren’t Taught: Five Lessons for a Fuller History

  • Speaking Memory: Oral History as Community Repair

  • Anansi to Mami Wata: Living Lineages of African Story

  • Victorian Wakanda: Where Afrofuturism Meets Steam

  • Can I Kick It?: Celebrating the Intersection of Blackness + Nerdiness

  • Re-centering Margins: Oral History and Cultural Memory

  • Seeds, Kitchens, Memory: Southern Foodways and the Routes of Resistance

collage of photographs in gold frames

everyone has a story to tell

Legacy + History

Our consultation services provide expert advice, research, and analysis on historical topics to organizations or individuals. We have worked with organizations, museums, historical societies, archives, libraries, and educational institutions.

oris historia

Oral History

As an Oral Historian, my ultimate goal is to collect the stories and history of communities of color, which give a broader and richer account of those people often on the margins of History. Oral Histories collect, preserve and interpret the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. It is both ancient as a tool for remembrance and recording and one of the most modern, utilizing 21st-century digital technology to capture history and marginalized voices.

black text on white background that reads Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves

Current Project

Black Experience + Relationship to Play

The purpose of this oral history project is to observe the intersections of Blackness and play on childhood and adolescent experiences and how that shapes play and ideas of leisure as adults.

I believe that for Black people, play and leisure are acts of resistance and the lack of safe spaces is a social justice issue. As the leader of a blerd organization whose core tenet is to promote and build community around gaming, board games, comics, science fiction, and fantasy across mediums for BIPOC people, I am interested in how those interests are formed in childhood and adolescence and how those experiences shape our interests as adults.


Other Projects

Museum exhibitionem

Museum Exhibitions

Audacious Nebraska: Descendants of DeWitty
Curator, Great Plains Black History Museum, Metropolitan Community College, Creighton University, Omaha, NE. Cherry County Historical Society, Valentine, NE. The Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History, Hastings, NE. Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, Grand Island, NE. Gage County Museum, Beatrice. NE.
Northside Carnation: Historic 24th Street 1940-1960s (2016), Curator; Metropolitan Community College and Carver Bank (Bemis Center for Contemporary Art).Say Amen: The Black Church in Omaha (2015), Assistant Curator, Researcher; Great Plains Black History Museum.Leading the Way: Black Leadership in Omaha (2015), Assistant Curator, Researcher; Great Plains Black History Museum.In Their Own Image: A History of African Americans in Omaha (2014-2015), Assistant. Great Plains Black History Museum.

ludum consilium

Game Consultation

  • Restoration Games: Unmatched Adventures, Tales to Amaze (Annie Christmas); Thunder Road Vendetta (Turbo Tina & Proud Mary). 2021-2025

  • Water Bear Games, 2020

  • Renegade Game Studio, Worlds Fair 1893, 2021 Edition

Where rules meet representation, Jade ensures accuracy, dignity, and delight, guiding studios to center Black histories in characters, culture, mechanics, and worlds.

vintage photograph of older couple; the man is wearing a suit and hat and the woman is wearing a hat, coat and fox fur collar

genealogia

Genealogy

Collecting the history of my family has been a labor of love for a number of years. Along the way, I've been able to use my knowledge of history and the collected stories of my family, to piece together forgotten details.Stories are a good start, but documenting the past offers a new approach to tell the story of where we came from and what it took for ancestors to blaze trails for future generations.

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want to learn more or have a project in mind? get in touch!

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