Evanston resident Karen Chavers waited more than a decade to give an artifact to historian Dino Robinson.

“People trust this man with their most prized history, mementos, artifacts and documents,” Chavers said. “He takes them as a gift.”

Chavers, director of the Evanston Neighborhood Conference, found her gift hanging from a wire in the ceiling of Community Hospital of Evanston. It was a green, frosted glass sign that said “emergency room.” Typical for a hospital — but significant because the last corner of this hospital, which had served Evanston’s black community when others would not, was about to be demolished.

“I got a very visceral reaction,” Chavers said. “It occurred to me for the first time that history was coming down.”

So Chavers carefully clipped the wire, removed the sign and wrapped it in a scarf. It stayed there for more than a decade. She was just waiting for someone who could take care of it, she said.

That person was Dino Robinson: historian, author and founder of the Shorefront organization.

Robinson takes a very personal approach to history. His quarterly magazine, Shorefront, tells historic and modern stories of Evanston’s black community. Each issue features a person on its cover, instead of a theme or landmark. He said readers feel a connection to history when they see another person’s face.

“They say ‘I know this person — I would like to get to know this person,'” he said. “And this person existed. We can’t ignore this person.”

Robinson tells the stories of a community he said has mostly been ignored in Evanston history. He began by writing a column on black history for the Evanston Clarion, a now-defunct local newspaper. He compiled those columns in his 1996 book “Place We Can Call Our Home.”

He later published a book and CD of black oral history, “Through the Eyes of Us.” He said that he was frustrated that he couldn’t fit all his research into the books, though.

“I thought, what good will it do if I transcribe these interviews and stick them in a file cabinet where nobody knows about them,” he said.

That’s when Robinson, a graphic designer by trade, thought of a magazine. He began experimenting with design and typeface, and even wrote a couple articles. Then the publication sat on his computer for about a year. He still didn’t feel satisfied as a designer, he said.

But finally he decided to “just do it.”

“I said, ‘What the heck. I’ll print some of these out and hand them out to the community,'” he said.

He initially printed about 1,000 copies of the magazine, but has scaled down the circulation to about 250 with a targeted audience of organization members, historical societies and libraries, including Northwestern, Robinson said.

NU archivist Patrick Quinn said Robinson is the first person to pay sustained, systematic attention to the history of Evanston’s black community.

“Before he began doing this, there was a real danger that the collective history of the African-American community would be lost,” Quinn said.

Robinson said he is aware of the urgency of his work, because many people who know the stories of black history firsthand are passing away. Having lived in Evanston for years, Robinson said, he has been able to build the trust necessary to get a more complete story from these people.

“It’s not a racial issue, it’s a respect issue,” he said. “I try really hard not to give the impression I’m using people.”

So far, Robinson has paid for Shorefront out of his pocket. But he applied for a number of grants, including the federally funded Community Development Block Grant, which is allocated by Evanston City Council.

Shorefront’s goal in applying for a grant was to make the magazine self-sufficient, Robinson said. His plans also include using the money to create internships for students from NU and Evanston Township High School.

But Robinson has bigger plans, including a museum and historical center, which he has dreamed of building since he founded the organization. He said his goal is to open the museum within 10 years.

Chavers, who is now a Shorefront board member and wrote the cover story in the recent summer issue, said she hopes that one day the artifact she trusted to Robinson will end up in that museum — alongside a history of Evanston Community Hospital that will give it meaning.

“When I saw it in the hospital, it was a diamond in the rubble,” she said. “(In the museum) it could be a diamond among other diamonds.”