New project unites digital humanities, Black studies, and data and computation Black Beyond Data, a new project backed by a $300,000 Mellon grant, will seek to create an open resource for scholars to combat racial injustice through digital humanities Credit: Getty Images July 15, 2021 There is a general belief that data is objective, neutral, and therefore accurate. Numbers don t lie, goes the oft-repeated maxim. But what about the people interpreting the data: can individuals really be objective or neutral? Who gets to decide which data is important? And what about the stories and truths that data can t tell? A team of researchers, on a mission to address some of these weaknesses, has received a $300,000 planning grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for their project, Black Beyond Data: Computational Humanities and Social Sciences Laboratory for Black Digital Humanities. By weaving together three digital humanities projects, Black Beyond Data connects the fields of digital humanities, Black studies, and data and computation to create a critical mass of scholars and research using digital humanities against racial injustice.