Selected by statewide cultural heritage stakeholders and funded by the DLG’s competitive digitization grant program, this collection is the Augusta Jewish Museum’s first collaboration with the DLG and is available here:
The collection contains historical materials dating from 1850 to 2022 that come from a diverse group of Jewish creators, including youth, women, clergy, fraternities, and congregations that offer unique insights into the greater Augusta, Georgia region’s Jewish life, philanthropy, foodways, and experiences.
Rabbi David Sirull of the Adas Yeshurun Synagogue in Augusta emphasizes the importance of making this work accessible freely online.
“It is important that we remember our place in history as we move to the future. The Augusta Jewish Museum allows for valuable content to be procured, preserved, and disseminated that tells the story of Jewish heritage in the Central Savannah River Area that encompasses the Augusta, Georgia area…This content is invaluable to researchers in defining the ways of Jewish life in the Southeast.”
About the Augusta Jewish Museum
The Augusta Jewish Museum and its programming chronicle the life, history, and contributions of the Jewish community in the Central Savannah River Area. The museum also educates about Jewish traditions, remembering the Holocaust, and Israel–the land and its people. Their website is: https://www.augustajewishmuseum.org/.
About the Digital Library of Georgia
Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia is a GALILEO initiative that collaborates with Georgia’s libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture, and life. This primary mission is accomplished by developing, maintaining, and preserving digital collections and online digital library resources. DLG also serves as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America and as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, the state’s historic newspaper microfilming project. Visit the DLG at dlg.usg.edu.
Selected images from the collections:
Title: Book of Handwritten Poetry, Rosina Hendricks Levy URL:https://dlg.usg.edu/record/augjm_augjmc_2019-003-010Collection: Augusta Jewish Museum Collection Courtesy of the Augusta Jewish MuseumDescription: Paper-bound book of poetry bound with twine into a single volume, handwritten pages. Rosina’s Book of Poetry is an essential part of local Jewish history as a rich, female, first-person perspective of the beginning of the Jewish congregation in Augusta. Rosina Hendricks, daughter of the first Jewish family who arrived in Augusta in 1802, authored this book that remains unpublished. Written throughout her adult life, the book includes poems written to her husband and children, on life in Georgia and the South, and on Judaism and her experiences as a Jewish woman. She played a key role in establishing the religious school that would eventually become the Congregation Children of Israel.
Title: “United for Worship and Charity” by Jack Steinberg URL:https://dlg.usg.edu/record/augjm_augjmc_2022-005-004 Collection: Augusta Jewish Museum Collection Courtesy of the Augusta Jewish Museum Description: Staple-bound booklet about the history and community of Congregation Children of Israel, authored by Jack SteinbergTitle: Daughters of Israel Cook Book, page 8 of 88 URL:https://dlg.usg.edu/record/augjm_augjmc_2021-054-001 Collection: Augusta Jewish Museum Collection Courtesy of the Augusta Jewish Museum Description: Synagogue Cookbook (1950s), Paper spiral bound with plastic spine, published by the Adas Yeshurun Synagogue’s (AYS) Daughters of Israel.
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.
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.”
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, includinggeographic 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.
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.”
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.
