Over the past year (2011) The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute has worked very hard and diligently in updating its Museum Galleries and Exhibits, as well as adding new exhibits. Please join us in recognizing and honoring our “Foot Soldiers” and “Invisible Giants" by incorporating them and their stories within the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute’s Exhibits; including, the “Foot Soldiers” Exhibit, the Courageous Eight and the Dallas County Voters League, and the “Window” Exhibit. These “Foot Soldiers” and “Invisible Giants” marched in the Selma to Montgomery Marches of 1965, the “Bloody Sunday March," the "Turn Around Tuesday March," and the "Selma to Montgomery March." We have created a new website which chronicles the history of the Voting Rights Struggle and pay tribute, and highlight our Galleries and Exhibits.
In October 2010, the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute hired its first Archivist/Curator, Digital Archivist, and Information Specialist to oversee its Preservation, Conservation, and Fabrication Project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Under the direction of its Archivist/Curator, the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute brought Tuskegee University Archives on board to assist in the creation of the NVRMI Archive and begin the processing and digitization of its Archive collections, records, and manuscripts. The digitization of its Special Collection Photographs: The Alabama Department of Public Safety Collection, the 150 inventoried Black History and Civil Rights Scholarship on African American Studies, and its 800 oral histories of the “Foot Soldiers.”
Jane Bond Moore and Julian Bond to Speak at ACRI and ASU
ALBANY, GA – September 5, 2011 – On September 29-30, 2011, civil rights activist and attorney Jane Bond Moore and her brother civil rights leader and historian Julian Bond will appear in Albany to discuss their roles in the civil rights movement. Jane Bond Moore will speak at the Albany Civil Rights Institute's Monthly Community Night on Thursday, September 29, and Julian Bond will talk at Albany State University on Friday, September 30. Their presentations are sponsored by ACRI, the C.B. King Black Attorneys Association, Albany State University's Civil Rights Celebration, Hilton Garden Inn Albany, and the Criterion Club.
Jane and Julian Bond grew up in the home of a college president. Their father, Horace Mann Bond, was the first president of Fort Valley State College and later president of Lincoln University. A man ahead of his times, President Bond fought for civil rights long before the modern movement emerged in the 1950s. Dr. Bond was a well-known writer on the social, education, and economic issues that affected the African American community. He was noted for writing a stinging critique of white society's claims about African American intelligence. Nurtured in this rich cultural environment, Julian Bond and Jane Bond Moore followed their father's interest in community, emulated his boldness, and continued his struggle for racial progress in America.
Jane Bond Moore's involvement with civil rights began with her work for the Southern Regional Council monitoring southern racist violence. She later worked behind the scenes at the SNCC headquarters in Atlanta. She started an integrated cooperative nursery school in Atlanta and worked on her brother's political campaign for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. She is an attorney, teaches law school in California, and is a contributor to Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC.
Julian Bond, retired chairman of the NAACP, is a leading national civil rights activist and history professor at the University of Virginia. He was a student at Morehouse College in 1960 when he participated in the southern student sit-in movement and helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He served as SNCC Communications Director from 1960 to 1966. In 1965 and 1966 he won a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives but his colleagues refused to seat him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. After winning his third election to the House, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor and he served the first of four terms in the House and six terms in the Georgia Senate. In 1968, Bond was nominated to run as Democratic candidate for U.S. vice president. He withdrew his name, however, as he was seven years younger than the minimum age of thirty-five. Since leaving his career in Georgia politics, Bond has been involved in history education and civil rights advocacy at the national level in numerous venues.
Jane Bond Moore will appear at the Albany Civil Rights Institute, 326 Whitney Ave., Albany, on Thursday, September 29, at 7:30 p.m. There will be a book signing following her talk. Copies of Hands on the Freedom Plow are now available in the ACRI gift shop. Julian Bond will appear at Albany State University's new student center ballroom on Friday, September 30, at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public for both events.
The next ACRI Monthly Community Night on Thursday, October 27, will feature historian Danielle McGuire speaking about her new book, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance-A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power.
For more information contact ACRI Executive Director Lee W. Formwalt at (229) 432-1698, lee@acrmm.org or ASU Civil Rights Fellow Racquel Henry at (229) 430-1790, Racquel.Henry@asurams.edu
50th Anniversary of Albany Civil Rights Movement to be Celebrated with Weeklong Program in November
ALBANY, GA – August 29, 2011 – This year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of three major civil rights events: the integration of the University of Georgia by Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes in January; the courageous attempt to integrate interstate travel in the Deep South by the Freedom Riders in May and throughout the summer and fall; and the organization of the Albany Movement in November and the ensuing marches and arrests of over 700 protestors, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Albany Civil Rights Institute and Albany State University will cohost a weeklong series of events commemorating the Albany Movement's 50th anniversary at ACRI and ASU, November 12-18.
The anniversary week begins Saturday, November 12, with a presentation by New York University historian Hasia Diner, "If I Am Not for Myself: If I am Only For Myself: Jews and the Civil Rights Movement." Professor Diner, who has researched and published a number of books on American Jewish history, including In the Almost Promised Land: American Jews and Blacks, 1915-1935, will speak at both Temple B'nai Israel and ACRI. Her presentation at ACRI, funded by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Temple B'nai Israel Congregation, will be followed by a book signing of In the Almost Promised Land.
On Sunday, November 13, Professors Emilye Crosby (State University of New York at Geneseo) and Todd Moye (University of North Texas) will discuss "What Have Historians Gotten Wrong About the Albany Movement? How Can Local Studies Help Us Get it Right?" Both historians have written on the importance of local studies in understanding the nature of movements in places like Albany. Their presentation will be followed by a book signing of Crosby, ed., Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, a National Movement, which includes essays by both Crosby and Moye.
Monday evening's presentation on November 14 will focus on the role of the church in the Southwest Georgia Movement. Speaking will be two ministers who were active in the Albany Movement and continue their ministry today in Albany: Rev. H. C. Boyd and Rev. Charles Sherrod (invited). Reverend Boyd was pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in 1961 and remains in that position today. Reverend Sherrod was the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Southwest Georgia. Unlike most SNCC field workers, Sherrod settled in the area where he had led the civil rights movement and eventually was elected to the Albany City Commission. He continues his civil rights leadership and ministry through his work on the Southwest Georgia Project.
Tuesday evening, November 15, will center on the photography of SNCC activist Danny Lyon. A celebrated photographer, filmmaker, and writer, Lyon began his career in photography as a college student who offered his services to SNCC as its first staff photographer. Some of his earliest civil rights pictures shot in Albany form the core of an exhibit of Danny Lyon photographs that will be on display at ACRI November 1-30. Lyon has been invited to discuss his civil rights photography followed by a book signing of his Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement.
Wednesday, November 16, will be devoted to writer, director and producer George Stoney's work in documenting the work of African American midwives in southwest Georgia. In 1952, Stoney, who recently celebrated his 95th birthday, made a film for the Georgia Department of Public Health to help train African American midwives. The film, All My Babies, focused on Albany midwife Mary Coley and has become an important document of Jim Crow Georgia. A reunion of a number of children delivered by Mary Coley took place in Albany in 2007 and was filmed by Stoney and his assistant David Bagnall. The resulting film, All My Babies Reunion, will premiere November 16 at ACRI. Both Stoney and Bagnall will be on hand for the premiere, to introduce the film, and answer any questions afterwards. Earlier in the day, ASU students and the public will have the opportunity to view the original 1952 film on the ASU campus.</ p>
Thursday, November 17 is the actual 50th anniversary of the founding of the Albany Movement, a coalition of local and national black organizations, in the home of Albany dentist, E.D. Hamilton. At that meeting, members elected osteopath William G. Anderson the first president of the Albany Movement. Dr. Anderson will return to Albany and provide his "Reflections on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Albany Movement, November 17, 1961."
The weeklong celebration will conclude Friday evening, November 18, with a performance by Rutha Harris and the ACRI Freedom Singers. Music was the heart and soul of the Southwest Georgia Movement. Albany natives Rutha Harris and Bernice Johnson Reagon helped form the original SNCC Freedom Singers group which traveled around the country giving concerts and raising money for the movement. In 1998, Rutha Harris founded and led a new group, now called the ACRI Freedom Singers, which provide Living History performances every second Saturday of the month. The Freedom Singers will provide a fitting finale for the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Albany Movement.
All 50th Anniversary evening presentations are scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. at ACRI, 326 Whitney Avenue, Albany. They are free and open to the public. Sponsors for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Albany Movement include the Georgia Humanities Council, Hilton Garden Inn Albany, Jane Willson, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Temple B'nai Israel Congregation. For more information, contact ACRI Executive Director Lee W. Formwalt at (229) 432-1698, lee@acrmm.org or ASU Civil Rights Fellow Racquel Henry at (229) 430-1790, Racquel.Henry@asurams.edu
