Research Catalog

The Rise and fall of Jim Crow documentary research collection

Title: The Rise and fall of Jim Crow documentary research collection, 1995-2002.

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Status	Container	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	box 4	Mixed material	Request in advance	Sc MG 742 box 4	Offsite
How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	box 3	Mixed material	Request in advance	Sc MG 742 box 3	Offsite
How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Box 2	Mixed material	Request in advance	Sc MG 742 Box 2	Offsite
How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Box 1	Mixed material	Request in advance	Sc MG 742 Box 1	Offsite

Details

Additional Authors

Description

2.8 linear feet (2 record cartons, 1 archival box, 1 card file box)

Summary

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow Documentary Research Collection documents some aspects of the production of the PBS television series, and most notably consists of over a hundred transcripts of interviews conducted with academicians and individuals, many of whom lived in the South during the era of Jim Crow.
For the online version, there are content outlines, narration, and an overview and a rough script for episode III. Of particular use is a detailed overview of each of the four episodes of the series. There are scripts for the first three episodes and limited production records. The most significant part of the collection is the 112 transcripts of interviews conducted primarily by Richard Wormser plus several done by Bill Jersey and Sam Pollard. Fourteen interview transcripts discuss the Elaine race riot in Elaine, Arkansas in 1919, during which a large number of black sharecroppers were killed by whites following a union meeting. The interviewees had relatives who grew up in Arkansas (a few had been sharecroppers themselves) and some were able to talk about the racial and working conditions in the early to mid-twentieth century. The several historians who were interviewed provide a scholarly perspective on the race riot.
The five interviewees who focused on elections primarily discussed politics, their experiences in voting and family life, in addition to lynchings and education, primarily in Georgia. Thirteen people were interviewed concerning the lynching of two married couples near the Moore's Ford Bridge in Georgia in 1946. This incident involved a white mob who grabbed the couples (both women were pregnant), tied them to a tree and shot them to death. The transcripts of two witnesses to the murders and a relative of one of the victims are included in the collection, as are those of former aides to President Truman, a former FBI agent, a Klansman, and Stetson Kennedy who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940's. In the Georgia Veterans files, six men and women, veterans of World War II, discussed their experiences before and after military service. Two journalists (Evelyn Cunningham of the "Pittsburgh Courier" and George Stoney of the "Survey Graphic") described what it was like reporting in various states in the South. Several of the ten Mississippi veterans described both positive and negative encounters they experienced overseas while former state senator of Mississippi, Henry J. Kirksey, spoke about his upbringing in a log cabin and incidents while stationed in Asia. Lewella Newsome discussed her training on bases in the North and South, and former Mississippi Governor William Winters touched upon social problems from the 1940's-1960's.
Two other Mississippi citizens spoke -- Miburn Crowe explained the history of Mound Bayou, an independent African-American town founded by former enslaved persons, and Charles Evers, brother of Medgar Evers, related his childhood experiences, how he learned of his brother's death and the way he (Charles) became the field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Mississippi.
There are sixteen interview transcripts discussing the students who organized a strike in 1951 for a better school than the segregated Robert Russa Moton High School they were attending, the Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. Many former students and their parents, along with former teachers, described their childhood in the segregated small town of Farmville, the school building itself and how ill prepared the students were for college.
Forty-seven transcripts of academicians, primarily historians, provide an intellectual and historical background of the Jim Crow era. Among the individuals interviewed are: Ralph Cassimere, Margaret Clifford (granddaughter of Booker T. Washington), Paula Giddings (discussing Ida B. Wells), Glenda Gilmore (re Charlotte Hawkins Brown), Kenneth Goings, Jacqueline Dowd Hall, Charles Houston Jr. and III (re Charles Hamilton Houston), David Levering Lewis, and Leon Litwack.

Subjects

Genre/Form

Scripts.
Interviews.

Note

Photographs transferred to Photographs and Prints Division.
Audiotapes, videotapes and films transferred to Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division.

Source (note)

Richard Wormser

Biography (note)

"The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" is a four-part television series that tells the story of the African-American struggle for freedom during the period of segregation in the South, 1880-1954. The series aired on PBS in 2002. The programs were produced, directed and written by the team of Richard Wormser, Bill Jersey and Sam Pollard.
The four episodes are organized chronologically. The central theme of Episode 1 (1865-1896) illustrates the conflict between the efforts of African Americans to achieve the promises of emancipation of full civil and political rights and the demand by whites for segregation and political exclusion. Episode 2 (1896-1917) explores the dramatic rise of a successful black middle class and the determination of white supremacists to destroy this fledging black political power. The third episode (1918-1940) chronicles the years between World Wars I and II, a time of increased mob violence, lynchings, and massacres of blacks. Episode 4 (1940-1954) examines the surge of black activism that occurred after World War II.

Call Number

Sc MG 742

OCLC

932771372

Title

The Rise and fall of Jim Crow documentary research collection, 1995-2002.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

sheet

volume

Biography

"The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" is a four-part television series that tells the story of the African-American struggle for freedom during the period of segregation in the South, 1880-1954. The series aired on PBS in 2002. The programs were produced, directed and written by the team of Richard Wormser, Bill Jersey and Sam Pollard.

The four episodes are organized chronologically. The central theme of Episode 1 (1865-1896) illustrates the conflict between the efforts of African Americans to achieve the promises of emancipation of full civil and political rights and the demand by whites for segregation and political exclusion. Episode 2 (1896-1917) explores the dramatic rise of a successful black middle class and the determination of white supremacists to destroy this fledging black political power. The third episode (1918-1940) chronicles the years between World Wars I and II, a time of increased mob violence, lynchings, and massacres of blacks. Episode 4 (1940-1954) examines the surge of black activism that occurred after World War II.

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Finding Aid

Added Author

Kennedy, Stetson.

Evers, Charles, 1922-

Kirksey, Henry J., 1915-2005.

Research Call Number

Sc MG 742

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