Amistad is committed to collecting, preserving, and providing open access to original materials that reference the social and cultural importance of America's ethnic and racial history, the African Diaspora, human relations, and civil rights.
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Theater Legend and Amistad Friend Remembered
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John O’Neal, the playwright, actor, director, educator and community/civil rights activist died Feb. 15, in New Orleans after a lengthy battle with dementia. He was 78.
O’Neal was a founding member of the Free Southern Theater in 1963 at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. It relocated to New Orleans in 1965. The theater’s mission was “to use theater as an instrument to stimulate the development of critical and reflective thought among black people in the South” while supporting the efforts of those involved in the Civil Rights Movement.
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Rouselle Papers To Amistad
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A 1973 “Black Politics Series” in the New Orleans
States-Item
included journalist and public relations guru Bill Rouselle alongside the city’s leading attorneys, activists and politicians.
Rouselle has worked in City Hall and throughout the community. He’s served as director of the city’s Human Relations Committee; moderated “Nation Time,” a public affairs show on WYES-TV; and was an advisor to
The Plain Truth
, an African American newspaper focused on civil rights.
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2018 IMPACT REPORT
2018 was a banner year for the Amistad Research Center. With the help of our friends and supporters, Amistad approached our fifth decade of service as one of the country’s largest and most prestigious organizations of its kind.
In recognition of this milestone, we have a vision: To deliver on our mission more broadly and deeply than ever before.
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Conversations in Color: Danielle Metz and Carmen James Randolph
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According to the American Civil Liberties Union, more than 200,000 women and girls are imprisoned for nonviolent crimes, a result of the judicial system’s war on drugs. In addition to those serving sentences, an additional 1 million are trapped in a system of probation and parole with very little support services available to assist them with transitioning back into society.
On Tuesday, April 2, we will hear from Danielle Metz about her experience in the criminal system, being granted clemency by President Barack Obama and the re-entry process. Carmen James Randolph, vice president of programs for the Greater New Orleans Foundation, will join Ms. Metz in a conversation about her incredible journey.
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Becoming Danielle Metz - Life After Incarceration
From 6 to 8 pm, this event includes extended viewing hours of the exhibition “per(SISTER): Incarcerated Women of Louisiana” at Newcomb Art Museum. The show raises awareness of the issues impacting women within our local penal system and features brand new artworks inspired by the stories of formerly and currently-incarcerated women, including a newly commissioned portrait of Danielle Metz painted by Sheila Phipps.
April 2, 2019
II
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center
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Archival Work Unearths Hidden Passion
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Over the last semester, I had the opportunity to do my service learning at the Amistad Research Center. At Tulane University, all undergraduate students are required to complete two tiers of service learning, each one at 20 hours. All of the service learning opportunities are in conjunction with a class and a community partner related to the class subject matter. For me, this class was “Sexuality in U.S. History,” taught by Dr. Red Tremmel. The Amistad Research Center was my community partner.
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Note: Brendon’s work on the “
Just for the Record
” Collection is part of a larger project to process and digitize our video collection. This work has been generously funded by a grant from the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana. ARC is working with the New Orleans Video Access Center to digitize “
Just for the Record
,” which ran on New Orleans cable access from 1987 to 1993 and was New Orleans’ first LGBTQ+ television program. The show covered local and national topics of interest to the gay and lesbian community. We are hopeful that the full collection will be processed and available to researchers by the end of 2019.
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National Humanities Alliance Spotlight on Amistad
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The Amistad Research Center is a community-based, independent archive that collects, preserves and makes accessible materials related to the long history of slavery, Civil Rights and race relations. In addition, the center holds collections documenting the contributions of many other underrepresented groups in the South and the United States, more broadly. Since 1978, the National Endowment for the Humanities has supported preservation and exhibition development at the center.
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Johnny M. Ross: An Appeal for Help from a Young Man on Death Row
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"
Please I beg of you to help me and talk with me. I'm truly afraid to die, and Louisiana Penitentiary is a very dangerous place for a 16-year-old to spend the rest of his life.
"- Johnny Ross, 1976
Amistad archivists, working with the records of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund found these heart-wrenching words recently. Work on the collection had to pause for a time that day, as Johnny's letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) struck horror in the hearts of our archivists. We needed to know more.
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Jennie F. Pratt: Ellis Island’s “Miss Liberty”
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The alien and the foreign born often labor under a heavy handicap. Never more so than in times of unemployment and economic depression. As the programs outlined below indicate, many groups are demanding a stricter rather than a more flexible immigration policy. Church people need to scrutinize these policies, to follow legislation as it is proposed in the coming session of Congress, and to seek justice for every resident, citizen or no
t.
From the December 1930 issue of
Church and Society
, published by The Department of Social Relations of the Congregational Education Society.
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The Mercantile Agency: A Curious Relationship of Credit Reporting and Abolitionism
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Lewis Tappan is remembered as a strong-minded individual in the pursuit of abolitionism, but the early records of the Mercantile Agency of New York present a businessman who may have been just as self-righteous as he was righteous. Nonetheless, his ambition created the first systematic scheme for credit reporting.
Lewis Tappan was born in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1788, one of five brothers. Following in the commercial footsteps of his father, Tappan amassed a small fortune selling dry goods only to lose it in the 1820s through poor investments. He was saved by his brother, Arthur Tappan, who had amassed a small fortune in the silk wholesale business.
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Tulane Law School for the Black Alumni Reunion Weekend, held Feb. 8 -10, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the graduation of Tulane Law’s first African American student, Michael Starks. Distinguished honorees included Amistad board members
Ron Wilson
and
Theon Wilson
, and board member Judge
Terri Love
served as one of the initiative chairs for the event.
Amistad board member
Sybil Morial
participated in a public discussion entitled “Civil Rights: What It Meant Then, What It Means Now, What It Means for Our Future” on Feb. 22 at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Orleans Louis A. Martinet Legal Society, the Association for Women Attorneys, the Federal Bar Association and the New Orleans Bar Association.
Amistad is also pleased to introduce new staff who are currently assisting the Center.
Amber Kinui
is happy to join the reference desk team after a half year of research and graduate assistant work at Amistad. Kinui was introduced to the Center while working on her master’s in English documentary literary studies certification at Tulane University. Her thesis was on the life of Fredi Washington from the lenses of hybridity and racial passing. Last semester, she continued to work closely with Amistad on a digital mapping project. Kinui earned her Bachelor of Arts from Loyola University New Orleans in English and Spanish. She also works at Newcomb College Institute and conducts research initiatives for diversity and inclusion for the Tulane President's Office.
Amanda Lima
helps staff Amistad’s reference desk and also works off-site sorting and processing the Federation of Southern Cooperatives’ archive. Lima earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in anthropology and a certificate in Latin American Studies, with an emphasis on Brazil. She completed minor programs in Afro-American Studies and Women’s Studies. Before assuming duties with Amistad in January, Lima worked as a research assistant at the W.E.B. DeBois Center at U of M. Before that, she worked in forensics.
John Wicker
is Amistad’s audiovisual technology specialist. He assists in recording and capturing Amistad’s public events and programming. Wicker also assists in planning a soon-to-come monthly podcast produced by Amistad. Before joining Amistad in October 2018, Wicker was employed by WWL Radio. He is a University of Southwestern Louisiana (renamed University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1999) alumnus who earned a degree in mass communications.
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