Saturday Sept. 13

Symposium and Oral History
Anniston Library, 108 East 10th Street

The oral history project and symposium will be led by Dr. Nan Elizabeth Woodruff. She is a native of Anniston and is nationally recognized as an authority on African-American and Southern history in the 20th century. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Penn State University and her most recent book, American Congo: The African -American Freedom Struggle in the Delta was just published by Harvard University Press.

Come Tell Your Story - Oral History
9:00 am to 12:00 in the Anniston Room at the Library

The citizens of Anniston will be invited to ''come tell their story' of race relations in Anniston as they experienced it. Participants will be lead by experienced oral historians in a video-taped telling of their stories in their own words. Participants will be asked to bring old pictures, newspaper clipping, mementos, etc - any thing that that they think is important in 'telling their stories'. All the materials will be copied or photographed to be preserved as a part of the historical record of this project.

Symposium Program - 4 sessions, 50 minutes each
12:30 to 6:00 at the Library

Civil Rights in Anniston - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow will be a first rate symposium with a series of presentations and papers with discussions and analysis by local, regional and national figures.

1. Setting the Stage - Black & White in Post War Anniston: 1945 - 60
   
   • Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Ph.D.
     Bankhead Fellow, Department of History, University of Alabama
     
   • Mr. Randall Williams
     NewSouth Books and formerly Southern Poverty Law Center
   
   
2. The Years of Crisis - 1960 to 1965
   
   • Rev. N. Q. Reynolds
     Original Member of Bi-Racial Human Relations Council
     
   • Dr. William B. McClain
     Original Member of Bi-Racial Human Relations Council
     
   • Dr. Phil Noble, Sr.
     Original Member of Bi-Racial Human Relations Council
     
   • Mr. Charles Doster
     Past Chairman of Anniston Library Board
     
   • Mr. Bob Fields
     Former Calhoun County Attorney
   
   

   

3. Beyond the Burning Bus: 1965 to Today
   
   • Mr. Brandt Ayers
     Publisher, The Anniston Star
     
   • Mr. Edward Wood
     Community Activist
     
   • Mr. Robert Downing
     Calhoun County Council
     
   • Mr. Gorgon Rodgers Jr.
     Community Leader
   
   
4. The Way Forward: A 21st Century Community
   
   • Mr. Pete Conroy
     Jacksonville State University
     
   • Other speakers
     
   • Young people from Teaching Tolerance project

Celebration Banquet
7:00 pm, First Presbyterian Church

This community-wide banquet will highlight and celebrate the progress that has been made over the last 40 years and to recognize the continuing challenges and issues of the future.

Program Speakers

• Former Gov. William Winter of Mississippi
• Rev. N.Q Reynolds, Minister 17th Street Baptist Church

Sunday Sept. 14

Commemorative Services
11:00, 17th Street Baptist and 1st Presbyterian Church

Services will be in recognition of the special roles that these two churches and their ministers played during our community's struggle with civil rights in the 1960's.

Community Wide Ecumenical Service
3:00 PM at the Anniston High School Auditorium

Service will be with a mass community choir. This service will recognize and celebrate the special role that was played in the struggle by people of faith and their respective congregations.

• Dr. William B. McClain, principal speaker