Voices of Continuity: Creating an AI-Enhanced Digital Oral Archive of Ghanaian Queen mothers and African American Church Mothers as Custodians of Community Power

This study explores how artificial intelligence can be used to preserve, analyze, and amplify the intergenerational leadership roles of Ghanaian Queen mothers and African American Church Mothers women who have long served as custodians of cultural memory, moral authority, and community governance. At a broader level, both institutions emerged from African matriarchal traditions where elderly women functioned as mediators, spiritual advisors, and socio-political strategists. However, colonialism, slavery, and missionary interventions often diminished their visibility within formal historical archives, while their leadership persists in oral traditions, rituals, and community practices. This project proposes the creation of an AI-enhanced digital oral archive to document and preserve their voices, philosophies, dispute resolution practices, and contributions to education, health, and social welfare. Using tools such as natural language processing, voice-to-text transcription, sentiment analysis, and metadata tagging, the archive will decode proverbs, prayer forms, adjudications, and communal instructions embedded in recorded interviews, church testimonies, and palace council proceedings. Narrowing the focus, the archive not only preserves cultural memory but also functions as a tool for leadership education, intergenerational dialogue, and decolonial historiography. By comparing oral narratives of Queen mothers in Akan chieftaincy systems with those of Church Mothers in African American Baptist, Pentecostal, and Methodist traditions, this research reveals shared philosophies of care, resistance, and community stewardship. Ultimately, this project demonstrates how AI can ethically support indigenous knowledge preservation while reinforcing the continuity of Black female moral leadership across continents and centuries.