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 archival staff at the Amistad Research Center is diligently working to increase access to the more than 700 archives and manuscripts collection by entering legacy finding aids, accession records, and biographical and historical sketches into the Center’s collection management database . Many of the Center’s collections came in the 1970s and have been under used or even unknown due to researcher difficulty of accessing paper finding aids or indexes. As we continue to work with these legacy collections, we are re-discovering some of the Center’s most significant collections documenting the life experiences and history of ethnic and racial communities in the United States. The Robert E. Jones Papers are just such a treasure; donated to the Center in 1976 and initially processed at the most basic inventory level early on, the collection has been a little known resource until now. The online finding aid provides expanded full-text searchable descriptions anywhere in the United States and beyond for this and other significant materials about African American and ethnic history and culture.
