News

First Articles from the Memphis World Now Available (14-July-2008)

We are currently digitizing the 1950-1970 issues of The Memphis World, an African-American newspaper that was published from 1931-1973. We now have articles from several issues in the collection. These articles will come up as part of any archive search (for example, try searching "NAACP" or "baseball"). You can also see sample articles in the Memphis World for January 27, 1950 collection. In addition to article transcripts, you can view the page of the newspaper that contains the article, with tools for zooming and navigating in the page image.

New Interviews, Including StoryCorps Audio (14-July-2008)

We have reached our 50-interview milestone, with more interviews being added by student fellows each week. Please see our Newly Added Interviews collection to view the latest. We have also added 8 audio interviews conducted last November by Story Corps, now available in our StoryCorps Audio Interviews collection.

Meet our Crossroads Fellows (12-May-2008)

Crossroads Fellows are students who create, process, and catalog all content you see on the site, and manage the project generally. Meet our summer 2008 team:
Dara Chesnutt (Rhodes); Jocelyn Cole (Fisk University); Francesca Davis (Rhodes); Khadija Hassan (Central High); Daniel Jacobs (Rhodes); Holly James (Rhodes); Britt Jenkins (Rhodes); Eric Neimeyer (University of Pittsburgh); Janeese Richey (Central High/Kentucky State); Marrissa Scales (Rhodes); Tiffani Smith (Fisk); Lauren Turner (Rhodes); Paris Westbrook (Fisk); April Wilson (Fisk); Denzel Young (Central High/Rhodes).

Crossroads in Rhodes Magazine (15-April-2008)

Crossroads is featured in the Spring 2008 Rhodes magazine! To read about the history and goals of the Crossroads project and interviews with project particpants, please see An Archive of Understanding.

Crossroads Students Deliver Papers at National Conference (26-March-2008)

On March 26, 2008, Courtney Eskew (10), Daniel Jacobs (09), Avery Pribila (09), and Crystal Windless (08) presented papers at the annual meeting of The Society for Applied Anthropology in Memphis. Their session was titled, "Crossroads: Engaging Students, Scholars, and the Memphis Community in Civil Rights History."

Crossroads MLK Week Events (22-January-2008)

On Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 7 PM in the Bryan Campus Life Center Ballroom, Crystal Windless (08) and Francesca Davis (08) moderated a video tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This tribute comprised excerpts from Crossroads interviews, including Johnnie Turner, Rev. Brooks Ramsey, Henry Turley, Mike Cody, Eddie Mae Hawkins and Rev. Billy Kyles. Current Crossroads Fellows created the tribute, which is now featured on our About Us page.

On Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008, Crossroads hosted a luncheon on campus that featured conversations with long-time Rhodes staff members about their experiences growing up in Memphis. These staff members were interviewed last November for the StoryCorps Griot initiative, and their interviews are now available here on the Crossroads site. Crossroads Fellows Daniel Jacobs (09) and Courtney Eskew (09) moderated.

Updated Searching (1-December-2007)

Now when you search Crossroads, you will be able to see your search term highlighted in the context of the objects your search returns, and move from one instance of the search term to the next. For example, try searching on "Daisy" to see each reference to Daisy Bates in Crossroads objects, without paging through long multi-page documents or transcripts. We hope you find this new feature useful, and please send feedback about other ways you’d like to be able to find materials on our site.

Former Summer Interns in the News (8-November-2007)

Our summer 2007 interns continue to focus on civil and human rights following their Crossroads experience. For example, Khadija Hassan was a featured speaker at the annual Facing History and Ourselves gala in November. Denzel Young was interviewed for the Summer 2007 MIFA newsletter about his internship and is now engaged in working on a website for the Hill Foundation.

Crossroads Fellows work with Local Middle School (15-September-2007)

Crossroads Fellow Crystal Windless has been working with 7th and 8th grade students at our partner Snowden School to prepare them to collect interviews with people in our local Memphis neighborhood as part of their "Connecting Generations" project with the National Civil Rights Museum. Windless has taught the students both videography and interviewing skills, and practiced with them as they begin to conduct their first interviews this winter.