The Black Historical past DAO, which is curated by members of its group, seeks to handle the issue of preserving historical African textual content, the same drawback literary critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. tried to handle years in the past, Kennedy mentioned. That mission fell wanting preserving the Timbuktu manuscripts, after Islamist rebels took management in 2013 and destroyed a lot of paperwork. Some, nevertheless, have been saved and now stay on-line.