In late 2008 I was asked to participate along with several of my colleagues in a documentary Andrew Young was making on the Civil Rights Digital Library at the University of Georgia. My particular role was to talk about Ed Friend's Highlander Folk School Film, a piece of segregationist propaganda from the late 1950s housed at the Russell Library, which we also digitized for use in the production. We were all delighted when the documentary, and its participants, won a regional NATAS EMMY Award. This is the Highlander excerpt from the documentary.
Reflections on Georgia Politics
Since 2007 we have produced close to 150 video interviews, with Georgia political veteran Bob Short as our interviewer, for our Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection. In May 2010 we celebrated the opening of the collection, and in 2012 we brought the collection to YouTube:
Russell Library Oral History Channel: Reflections on Georgia Politics
"Look to the Past": An Introduction to the Russell Library
On February 17, 2012, the new Richard B. Russell Special Collections Building at the University of Georgia officially opened. It was the end of a 15-year fundraising effort and a 4-year design and moving process. The Walter J. Brown Media Archive and Peabody Awards Collection, the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, and the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies found a new home for their collections and, importantly, each of the archives was given substantial gallery space to showcase collection highlights. Along with creating the video exhibits in the Russell gallery, I was charged with producing a video introduction to the Russell Library, to run in the gallery theater. The challenge was to introduce the gallery-goer to Senator Richard B. Russell, the archive's namesake, presenting him honestly -- he was a leading segregationist in his day -- while emphasizing the impact of his career on Georgia and on the individuals represented in the other collections held at the Russell (which number over 300). This is the result:
