About Us

The purpose of Crossroads to Freedom is to promote and support conversations in our community about the impact of this historical era on our city today. The main focus is on Memphis from about 1950-1970. Rhodes College began planning for the archive in Fall 2005. During the planning phase, we consulted with a number of community members and other institutions engaged in digital library initiatives. We also created a prototype collection based on the Hill Foundation collection, which focuses on the 1955 desegregation of schools in Hoxie, Arkansas. At the same time, we began oral interviews and identifying other materials for inclusion in the archive.

The video clip above lasts about 15 minutes, and includes short segments from several Crossroads interviews: Ms. Johnnie Turner, Rev. Brooks Ramsey Dr. Luther Ivory, Mr. Mike Cody, Mr. Henry Turley, Ms. Eddie Mae Hawkins and Rev. Samuel (Billy) Kyles. Crossroads students created this compilation an an homage to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to give a sense of just a few of the interviews in our collection.

How to Contribute

Community participation is fundamental to the Crossroads to Freedom project. Participation can be through:

• hosting an event in which materials in Crossroads is a focus for conversation
• contributing a personal collection for digitization for the collection
• participating in an oral interview for the project

We return all materials that are digitized for the archive, and the owner retains rights to the materials. Rhodes College also requires non-exclusive rights, and contributors sign a release form allowing Rhodes to continue to display these objects in Crossroads and other contexts.

Oral interview subjects likewise retain non-exclusive rights with Rhodes, and also sign a release form. For more on our intellectual property policy see our Copyright and Terms of Use.

Technical Information

The Crossroads to Freedom digital archive is built on Fedora, with a custom-developed Java front end built on a Spring framework. We use Elated, developed by students in the Associated Colleges of the South Software Engineering program, for archive administration.

Acknowledgements

Crossroads is funded in part by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas.

In addition we are grateful for the support of the following institutions and individuals:

Patrick P. Carey, The Curb Family Foundation, William W. Deupree, Jr., the Deupree Family Foundation, FedEx Corporation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Lynne and Henry Turley

Please contact us you are interested in or have questions about contributing to the archive.