The years 2004 and 2005 are significant in marking the fiftieth anniversaries of Brown v Board of Education (I and II) and the fortieth anniversaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Recognizing the importance of these historical events and feeling the urgency of passing time, Dr. Sekou Franklin, Assistant Professor of Political Science, and Dr. Lisa Pruitt, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Gore Research Center, have begun a joint project to document the history of the civil rights movement in Rutherford County. The Rutherford County Civil Rights Documentation Project (CRDP) will be a three-year effort to record and document the experiences of Rutherford County citizens who grew up under de jure/Jim Crow segregation, and who personally experienced or were involved in post-World War II civil rights activism.
The CRDP will be enlisting the support and participation of local community activists, civil rights organizations, civic groups, and churches. The Bradley Academy Museum and Cultural Center in Murfreesboro has already agreed to partner in this effort. The project will also enlist the support of other MTSU faculty and students and will seek to involve students from at least one of the county's high schools.
The CRDP will collect three types of historical documentation of the civil rights movement in Rutherford County: (1) oral history interviews, the centerpiece of this initiative; (2) an archive of personal and organizational papers, photographs, and audiovisual materials of local civil rights activists; and (3) museum-type artifacts. Bradley Academy will serve as the repository for museum artifacts and a duplicate set of oral history tapes and transcripts. It will also serve as the venue for exhibits and other public events. The Gore Center will house, preserve, and provide access to research collections, include personal and organizational papers, photographs, and audiovisual materials, as well as the archival originals of the oral history tapes and transcripts. Originals or facsimiles of these research materials will be made readily available on a routine basis for exhibit at Bradley Academy.
If you have information or archival resources to share or would like to become involved with this effort, please contact Dr. Franklin (franklin@mtsu.edu) or Dr. Pruitt (lpruitt@mtsu.edu or 898-2632).