Crossroads to Freedom

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Recognizing the need to document the memories and stories of locals who were privy to the event as well as capturing a sense of the civil rights movement in the city, students at Rhodes College created Crossroads to Freedom, a digital archive consisting of interviews and documents relating to Memphis from about 1950-1970.

Collection Principles: The collection is a work in progress. In addition to interviews with community members and Rhodes faculty, the students are digitizing the 1950-1970 issues of The Memphis World, an African-American newspaper published from 1931-1973. They are also working with local elementary students to encourage inter-generational communication, teaching them interviewing and videography skills.

Object Characteristics: The interviews are available from the site -- no downloading of additional players is necessary. Each interview includes a transcript that appears simultaneously with the video. The interviews are divided into segments, which can be forwarded between. The date of the interview is noted and described as 'digital video.' The printed matter is digitized as high resolution images that may be examined closely with a zoom feature.

The site also includes information from the Hill Foundation collection, a collection focusing on the 1955 desegregation in Hoxie, Arkansas, which was used as an exemplar for the Crossroads site.

Metadata: Each video and image includes a title, name of creator, date of creation, publisher, rights information, and a brief description of the interview contents. The collection may be searched by keywords, places, date or subject. More specifics about the quality of images would be nice, although there is a useful print option for the material included on the site.

Intended Audience: The site is intended to create a dialogue among the people of Memphis and surrounding areas. Scholars interested in the Civil Rights Movement would also find the site helpful.