The paper explores the impact of generative digital scholarship to document and illuminate the black experience in Winter Park, Florida. Building on a community engagement and experiential learning model that positions the classroom as a critical making platform, this presentation documents how archival research and digital exhibits focused on African Americans in Central Florida aligns with broader questions of heritage, memory, and power. This presentation will discuss how utilizing archival research to create digital and public history projects such as Advocate Recovered, a digital reconstruction of an African-American newspaper document networks of economic, social, and political power rooted in the black experience.