Week 10: Process to Progress

Last week was all about processing and planning of future projects at the Center. I continued to work diligently on processing the John O’Neal papers (now approximately 37 linear feet) and participated in Amistad Research Center’s Staff Planning Day. We discussed our organizational goals for 2012, including innovative and effective utilization of the repository’s resources to make them available for use and how to help engage and empower new and existing researchers. I also look forward to curating an exhibition for the first quarter of 2012 and other digitization projects.

Until next week!

Peace

Week 9: Community Arts Organizations

Last week, I was consumed with the mission of processing series two of the John O’Neal papers at the Amistad Research Center. Series two, community arts organizations, comprises documents from arts associations that were mainly located in the South, including Alternate ROOTS, Southern Black Cultural Alliance, the Art Council of Greater New Orleans, and Voices of the New Orleans Movement. Of note are correspondence from Oretha Castle Haley (1939-1987), the cofounder of New Orleans’ Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and an activist for women and human rights. Later in Haley’s career, she established the New Orleans’ Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation.

As I continue to process this large collection, I am sure I will find other documents about community arts organizations and interesting facts to share.

Week 8: Art and Politics

During week eight, I was a “busy bee.” I finally completed the civil rights organizations series for the John O’Neal papers and composed a series description (yeah); attended a digital projects meeting to discuss metadata guidelines; participated in a collection development meeting; and joined fellow co-workers to a book signing on Tulane’s campus.

I decided to process O’Neal’s community arts organizations series as my second adventure! So far, this series encompass files of art and local community organizations in the Southeast and New Orleans, including committee minutes and agendas for Alternate ROOTS (Regional Organization of Theaters South). O’Neal served as a member of the Advancement Advisory Group and on the Board of Directors for Alternate ROOTS, and as an active member of several other community arts organizations in New Orleans.  Alternate ROOTS was created in 1976 by a small group of performing artists who addressed the goals of promoting social change and economic justice through art and cultural democracy in the Southeast.

As a staff, we attended the A.P. Tureaud, Jr. (Alexander Pierre Tureaud, Jr.) and Rachel Emanuel book signing to hear and discuss A More Noble Cause: A.P. Tureaud and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Louisiana. In 1953, A.P. Tureaud Jr. enrolled as a freshman at Louisiana State University, becoming the school's first African American undergraduate student. Co-author, Dr. Rachel Emanuel, is currently a lawyer and professor of the Southern University Law Center.  The authors passionately described the life of New Orleans attorney, A.P. Tureaud, Sr., his contributions as the principal attorney for the New Orleans chapter of the NAACP, and his personal stance as an advocate for integration, not desegregation of public schools.

A.P. Tureaud’s papers are archived at the Amistad Research Center.