By Christopher Harter, Director of Library and Reference Services, Amistad Research Center
"Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations" is a collaborative project between Emory University's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, and The Robert W. Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center to uncover and make available previously hidden collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta and New Orleans. The project is administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each organization regularly contributes blog posts about their progress.
The Andrew Young Oral History Collection, found within the papers of New Orleans writer and oral historian Tom Dent at the Amistad Research Center, encompasses 50 individual interviews conducted from 1980 to 1985 as part of Dent’s work on the autobiography of his childhood friend, Andrew Young. As early as 1979, Dent was working on the autobiography, though he wasn’t officially hired as a consultant until 1981-1982, and he continued to work on the book until 1986. Dent traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to conduct a series of interviews with Young before beginning to research Young’s early days in New Orleans and civil rights era history for the draft of the book, with the working title “An Easy Burden.”
