Our Newest Georgia Exhibit “Thy Neighbor as Thyself” (March 2024)

Photo of the Graduating Class of the Atlanta School of Social Work, 1920

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) and the New Georgia Encyclopedia (NGE) are pleased to present Georgia Exhibits’ newest exhibition, curated by Kailey Joy McAlpin, “‘Thy Neighbor As Thyself’: The Women Who Shaped Georgia’s Civic Landscape.” 

Kailey Joy McAlpin, a Ph.D. student at Georgia State University, explores Georgia’s women reformers of the Progressive Era, some of whom include Mary Latimer McLendon, Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Carrie Steele, Helen Pendleton, Lugenia Burns Hope, Jessie Daniel Ames, Selena Sloan Butler, Martha Berry, and Julia Flisch.

Photo of Lugenia Burns Hope
“Lugenia Burns Hope.” 1871/1947. February 27, 2024. Courtesy of New Georgia Encyclopedia

These women came from different class backgrounds and had different racial attitudes and practices. McAlpin uses the theme and motto “Thy Neighbor as Thyself” to center the work done by Black women during the Progressive Era, both with and without the support of their white Progressive counterparts.

Photo of the Graduating Class of the Atlanta School of Social Work, 1920
“Graduating Class of Atlanta School of Social Work, circa 1920.” February 27, 2024. Courtesy of Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library

McAlpin’s work dedicates itself to bringing the differences between white and Black women reformers to light. She explains that access to materials, resources, and support was much more abundant to white women than their Black peers, not to mention the actual risk of life and limb posed to Black women, particularly with regard to suffrage. She states:

“While Black suffragists in the North could form organizations and advocate for voting rights, the hostile racial climate of the South and fear of violent retaliation from Southern whites kept many Black women from making public demands for suffrage. Despite the looming threat of assault and death, some Black women did publicly advocate for suffrage, and examples of Black suffrage organizations have been recovered in Tuskegee, Alabama, Charleston, South Carolina, and Memphis, Tennessee. While evidence of Black women’s suffrage in the Jim Crow South has often been hidden from the historical record, there was doubtless support for voting rights that took place behind closed doors in spaces removed from white surveillance.”

For better or worse, the engagement of these women and their respective organizations with their day’s pressing political issues and social concerns had a tremendous impact on voting access, child labor laws, rural education, public health legislation, racial inequality and injustice, and other social causes.

Photo of Selena Sloan Butler
Box 7, Folder 4, Selena Sloan Butler papers, Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System.. “Photographs, Selena Sloan Butler, undated.” 1886/1893. February 27, 2024. Courtesy of Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History

Each year, DLG and NGE staff and graduate student interns curate Georgia Exhibits exhibitions to shed new light on understudied corners of the state’s history and showcase the remarkable breadth and depth of authoritative resources and historical content in the DLG and NGE. We offer all of these resources freely online.

You can view the exhibition at https://georgia-exhibits.galileo.usg.edu/spotlight/women-reformers and the rest of our Georgia Exhibits at https://georgia-exhibits.galileo.usg.edu.

K-12 educators take note: This exhibit serves our Georgia K-12 social studies audience by aligning with the Georgia Social Studies Standards of Excellence (GSE) standard SSUSH13: Evaluate efforts to reform American society and politics in the Progressive Era.

 

#HistoricPreservation #ProgressiveEra #Equality #WomensReform #CivilRights

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The Civil Rights Digital Library Relaunches With A New Look And Fifteen Years Of Updated Content

A premier online compilation of digital civil rights content is relaunching with a new look and thousands of additional pieces of history.

The milestone marks a new era for the Civil Rights Digital Library (CRDL). This project brings together more than 200 libraries, archives, and museums to provide free online access to historical materials documenting the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. These collaborative partnerships are the bedrock of this national project.

View the entire collection online at https://crdl.usg.edu/. 

Barbara McCaskill, an English professor at the University of Georgia who serves as director of the Civil Rights Digital Library and other projects, notes: 

“Since its launch in 2008, the Civil Rights Digital Library has played a meaningful role in advancing the understanding of America’s civil rights activism at a time when upticks in racially motivated violence and crime and the erosion of voting rights have attached more urgency than ever to issues of equality, equity, human dignity, and freedom.”  

She says: 

“The signal achievement of this resource is its varied and unique content about people, places, and events. But it also challenges users to expand their knowledge of civil rights studies beyond national icons such as Dr. King and Rosa Parks, cities such as Atlanta and Birmingham, and beyond the 50s, 60s, and 70s to the present day.“ 

”As a result, the Civil Rights Digital Library continues to demonstrate a transformative impact on scholarship and instruction, as well as on how we carry ourselves as citizens and come together in community.” 

First funded by a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Civil Rights Digital Library launched in 2008 as part of the University System of Georgia’s GALILEO statewide virtual library initiative. Along with these continuing collaborations, the Digital Library of Georgia , an initiative of GALILEO and the University of Georgia Libraries, administers the site. 

In addition, support continues to be provided by the following partners: 

Since 2005, the portal has grown from about 100 collections to more than 350 collections of digitized content, including primary sources and educational resources.

The Civil Rights Digital Library contains contributions from statewide and national partners, documenting the civil rights era, including:

Researchers and visitors can search the content of the Civil Rights Digital Library in numerous ways, including geographic location browsing with an interactive map that identifies civil rights movement-related resources in all 50 states.

The site also contains: 

  • Biographical information for more than 3,000 people active during the civil rights era, which can be browsed alphabetically by surname. Many of these civil rights workers and foot soldiers may not be familiar, but their commitment to the movement formed the backbone of transformative civil rights campaigns and social reform.
  • New Georgia Encyclopedia (NGE) articles that cover events and individuals associated with the civil rights movement in Georgia. In addition to the concise, authoritative articles, images, multimedia files, and online exhibitions in the NGE further investigate civil rights figures and events. NGE’s content is made possible by Georgia Humanities in partnership with the University of Georgia Press, the University System of Georgia/ GALILEO, the University of Georgia Libraries, and the Office of the Governor.
  • Raw newsfilm footage from Georgia television stations WSB (Atlanta) and WALB (Albany) preserved through the University of Georgia Libraries’ Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection. These stations covered civil rights events throughout the entire southeastern United States. 
  • Exhibits drawn from materials belonging to partner libraries, archives, and museums across Georgia, created by Georgia graduate students in collaboration with the DLG and NGE.

“By relaunching an expanded site on Sept. 9, 2022, the 65th anniversary of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the Digital Library of Georgia celebrates the first federal civil rights legislation of the 20th century,” adds Sheila McAlister, director of the Digital Library of Georgia. “The relaunch demonstrates the DLG’s commitment to reflecting and sharing the diversity of experiences in Georgia and nationwide.”


View the entire collection online at crdl.usg.edu

Download the Civil Rights Digital Library 2022 Press Kit here


Selected images:

https://crdl.usg.edu/record/ugabma_wsbn_wsbn44816
Series of WSB-TV newsfilm clips of a civil rights march and resulting arrest; civil rights preachers and local officials speaking at mass meetings; groups of Albany city officials as well as civil rights leaders entering the federal courthouse; and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy at a press conference in Albany, Georgia, 1962 July. In this still image, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. expresses his disappointment of the injunction blocking demonstrations issued by federal district judge J. Robert Elliott and his gratitude for the reversal of that injunction by Judge Tuttle. He calls the audience to present their bodies as a significant witness by continuing to move and work for freedom. Courtesy of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection.

 

https://crdl.usg.edu/record/ugabma_wsbn_wsbn41989
Series of WSB-TV newsfilm clips of African American civil rights workers, Georgia National Guardsmen, and city officials in Albany, Georgia, 1961 December. Courtesy of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection.
https://crdl.usg.edu/record/ugabma_wsbn_wsbn36242
WSB-TV newsfilm clip of an unidentified white female civil rights worker describing the challenges she faces in rural southwest Georgia from Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, 1962 August 1. This still image includes participants of a mass meeting, possibly at Shiloh Baptist Church, singing the freedom song, “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize.” Courtesy of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection.
https://crdl.usg.edu/record/ugabma_wsbn_wsbn36237
WSB-TV newsfilm clip of African American student protesters singing as they are arrested by police at the Albany Carnegie Library in Albany, Georgia, 1962 August 2. Courtesy of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection.
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