More than five years ago DTLT started working with UMW’s archivist Carolyn Parsons to try and digitize James Farmer’s video lecture series recorded here at UMW in 1983. The lecture series is an awesome historical resource featuring James Farmer---one of the greatest orators of the 20th century---re-telling his compelling experiences as a civil rights activist in the South during the 1960s. And while the project laid dormant for many years, thankfully Jeff McClurken’s and four of his students in Adventures in Digital History class resurrected it and brought it to life online. Laura Donahue, Michelle Martz and Caitlin Murphy and Kelsey Matthews archived, transcribed, and contextualized 13 of Farmer’s lectures from 1983. What’s more, they’ve created what is arguably the single best resource site yet to see light on UMW Blogs: http://jamesfarmerlectures.umwblogs.org/ The vertical hold on the VHS tapes with the first 4 lectures were in such bad shape that they’ve been shipped out for … [Read more...]