Scope and Content Note
The manuscript submissions consist of correspondence from AARP members who responded to invitations in AARP Magazine and AARP Bulletin asking members to send in written vignettes of 500 words or less describing their civil rights experiences. This call for submissions was broadened when AARP published another invitation to general readers of the Sunday newspaper magazine Parade. Once the project had gained momentum, individuals were also able to submit their written experiences through the Voices of Civil Rights website and email. In addition, some interviewees from the bus tour also submitted written accounts. The majority of the 1,612 submissions are 1-2 pages; some participants included longer reminiscences and other items such as photographs and copies of related news articles.
The book My Soul Looks Back in Wonder is a collection of essays based on original audio interviews with 33 individuals. Authored by journalist Juan Williams, this book focuses on the experiences of both leaders and ordinary people who participated in or were affected by civil rights movements. This collection includes audio interviews with 82 people considered for the book, transcripts, book chapter drafts, and background research conducted for the book and submitted to AARP at the close of the project.
Beginning in Washington, D.C. on August 3, 2004, the bus tour traveled part of the 1961 Freedom Riders route and covered 48 cities in three months. By the conclusion of the tour, nearly 200,000 people had attended Voices of Civil Rights events in their communities. VOCR kick-off events with speeches and musical performances by local groups were held at many of the major cities that were visited, and audio and video documentation of these events are included in this collection. Still image documentation of the entire project was captured on digital and negative film. The team of journalists assembled for this project conducted the majority of the bus audio/video oral histories, capturing them on minidiscs and Digital Video (DV) tapes. In addition to interviews captured by the project staff, a team from the History Channel also conducted video interviews for joint use by the History Channel and the project. There are approximately 1158 audio interviews with 32 corresponding transcripts and approximately 569 video interviews with 47 corresponding transcripts in this collection.
The administrative materials generated by AARP to track the growing collection of materials is also included in this collection and consists of promotional and press materials, Excel spreadsheets, inventory lists, and interviewer log notes.