Marion Stokes was a dedicated archivist known for recording television programming for over 30 years. Born on November 25, 1929, in Philadelphia, Stokes was an outspoken leftist who actively participated in the civil rights movement and faced scrutiny from the FBI due to her political beliefs. After being fired from her librarian job, she began co-producing a public-access show, Input, focusing on social justice themes.
Her archiving journey began in 1979 during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, aiming to preserve news content that networks often discarded. Over 35 years, she amassed a staggering 70,000 tapes, documenting significant events and various programs. Stokes believed that knowledge was a form of power and wanted to counteract government control over history.
After her death on December 14, 2012, her son Michael inherited her extensive collection but encountered challenges in finding a home for the tapes. Eventually, the Internet Archive accepted the collection, which includes an estimated 420,000 hours of content. As of October 2025, digitization efforts were ongoing. Stokes’s work continues to be a significant resource against disinformation.
