Wilda Logan

As an undergraduate student at Hampton Institute (now University), Logan originally dreamt of becoming a librarian.[1] She majored in History and planned to continue after graduation with a master's in library science. In an interview with Steven D. Booth, an archivist at the Barack Obama Presidential Library, she describes her first experience with archives:

"At Hampton, history majors were required to write a senior thesis using primary sources. So we were granted special permission to do research at the Hampton Archives. Now you couldn’t just walk in. You had to have an appointment. When I went to meet with the archivist, his name was Mr. [Fritz] Malval, he showed me all types of records about Hampton, some of which dated back to the founding of the college. From the very beginning Hampton realized the significance of its role as an institution of higher learning for African Americans and they documented everything. There were official minutes, letters, news clippings, photographs…everything was so well organized. It was like I walked into heaven! After I completed my senior thesis and graduated from Hampton, I decided to still get my library science degree but to focus on archives; that it would be my career."[1]

After she graduated from Hampton, Logan received a full scholarship to the University of Maryland at College Park to pursue her Master's in Library Science. While there, she was "one of two African American full-time graduate students."[1] In her last semester, there were internship opportunities all across Washington, DC, including the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, but Logan could not find any internships with African American collections. Her advisor spoke with colleagues at Howard University and created an internship with Dr. Thomas Battle at the Moorland–Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. She interned at Moorland while doing another graduate-level internship at the National Archives, and when she received her degree, she was offered the position of Manuscripts Librarian at Moorland.

As a Manuscripts Librarian at Moorland-Spingarn, she was responsible for processing some of the major African American manuscripts and personal papers, including those of Dr. Charles Drew and Jesse E. Moorland. In 1985, after working seven years at Howard University, she advanced to the position of Appraisal Archivist at the National Archives and then became Work Group Leader and Supervisor. As Supervisor, she was responsible for the Agriculture, Health and Human Services, ‘Education, Transportation, and Veteran Affairs Departments. She continued to manage records management training program operations in Washington, DC and manage the division's annual RACO conference and ARMA conference Federal Day programs. While still attending to her management and supervision responsibilities, Logan was also assigned to diversity and inclusion teams. In one of her teams, they were "responsible for budgets, activity reports, establishing Hispanic Association of College and Universities (HACU) internships, dissemination of NARA employment opportunities, especially for students; sharing NARA free publications and attending regional and professional career and job fairs to promote NARA."[2] Because of their activities in diversity and inclusion, Logan and the team were awarded the Archivist Achievement Award in both 2001 and 2002.

Logan has assisted in the development of several important policies and documents through NARA "including appraisal justification memos; records management training materials; conference programs, newsletters, and publications; records management briefing documents; records management and diversity policies and procedures; and evaluation reports."