Taking on Poverty: Senator Miller's Idea for Empowering the South

Zell Miller went straight for a significant issue with his first piece of major legislation as a U.S. Senator: combating systematic, multi-generational poverty in the South. Inspired by the transformation he witnessed as a boy growing up in Appalachia from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), his bill provided $250,000 for a study to assess if a commission focused on a region known as the Black Belt was needed. The money was matched by Macon businessman Benjamin W. Griffith III to allow for a more thorough investigation.

The term Black Belt was coined in 1901 by Booker T. Washington to refer to a swath of rural southeastern counties stretching from Virginia down to Georgia and west to Texas that had previously been known for cotton production and historically has had a high proportion of African Americans.

Item 1

Excluded from the ARC and the Delta Regional Authority, this area was getting left out of Federal aid. Miller thought it was time to change that, comparing the conditions to the  "Third World" (The Hill, August 8, 2001).

The study, officially called the "Study of Persistent Poverty in the South," was conducted by the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government to look back at 20 years of data from the region. Compared to the national average, they found higher poverty rates, lower levels of education, and poorer health going back generations. Georgia was disproportionately affected, being home to 25% of the poor in the Black Belt.

Item 2

With evidence from the report clearly pointing to a need in the region, Miller introduced the Southern Regional Commission Act of 2003 (S.527) to the 108th Congress on March 5, 2003. The bill created the Southern Regional Commission with a funding of $40 million a year for fiscal years 2004 through 2008. The focus would be on education, health, housing, transportation, technology, and infrastructure. The report was so compelling that two competing bills were introduced to address the same problems: the Southern Empowerment and Economic Development (SEED) Act (HR 678) proposed by Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama and the SECA (South East Crescent Authority) (HR 3618) sponsored by Congressman Mike McIntyre of North Carolina.

Item 3

In the end, none of these bills made it into law. Miller's bill was referred to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, where no further action was taken. Davis introduced the SEED Act on three different occasions, and the SECA legislation was introduced four times in the House by McIntyre and twice in the Senate by Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina. In all cases, the bills were referred to committees but never came up for a vote.

Captions:
Item 1: Map showing the African-American Population as a percentage of the total population in the Southern Black Belt, 2000 (source: Box V.86, Folder 20)

Item 2: Map of Georgia: counties in red are areas of persistent poverty, counties in blue are covered by the Appalachian Regional Commission, 2003 (source: Box V.86, Folder 25)

3. Cover of the Study on Persistent Poverty in the South, 2002 (source: Box V.86, Folder 27)

Zell Miller's senatorial papers were recently processed and are now open for research.

Post by Adriane Hanson, Digital Curation and Processing Archivist, Russell Library 

School Lunch Challenge, Saturday March 28th, 2-4PM

A Tribute to Albert Maysles

This post, written by archivist Craig Breaden, was originally published on this blog in 2009. Today, our staff learned of the passing of director Albert Maysles and wanted to repost this entry to highlight his short career in politics.   

Two jewels in the Russell Library's collection of campaign ads come from the Carl Sanders collection. In 1970 Sanders ran a losing race against Jimmy Carter, whose populist message effectively countered the image Sanders cultivated: the cool competence of a former governor and skilled attorney. The Sanders 1970 campaign, unsuccessful as it may have been, yielded some of the more interesting political ads ever televised.

In 1969 Sanders hired the Burton Campbell Advertising Agency to develop his public image. One of Burton Campbell's chief creative writers was Hugh Wilson (who would later find great success as writer and producer of WKRP in Cincinnati). Wilson was enamored with the work of the Maysles brothers, creators of "direct cinema" documentaries whose art was elevating the ordinary or, conversely, bringing the extraordinary back down to earth (check out the Gimme Shelter or Grey Gardens, two of their masterpieces). Wilson hired Albert Maysles to shoot the ads, and in the summer of 1969 Maysles followed Sanders for four days, shooting five hours of film. Two longer commercials were edited from this footage, with, as Sanders's confidante Judge Norman Underwood put it, "impressive but not persuasive" results. Hugh Wilson put it this way: "I'm the man who got Jimmy Carter elected governor of Georgia." For a look at the commercials, check out this playlist on the Russell Library Audiovisual Collections YouTube Page.

Craig Breaden's longer article on the Sanders/Maysles campaign ads, "Carl Sanders and Albert Maysles: Direct Cinema meets Georgia Politics, 1969" appears  in the Fall 2009 issues of
The Journal of the Moving Image from the Association of Moving Image Archivists.

Documentary Screening, Yuck!

Join the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies on Saturday, March 21st from 4:00-5:00PM in the auditorium of the Special Collections Libraries Building (300 S. Hull Street) for a free community screening of Yuck!, a short documentary film chronicling fourth grader Zachary’s efforts to document the school lunch offered in his New York City public elementary school. The film will be followed by a discussion about school lunch in the Athens area. Doors open at 1:45.

This screening is connected to the Russell Library’s ongoing exhibition, Food, Power, Politics: The Story of School Lunch, on display in the Harrison Feature Gallery through August 2015. For more information call (706) 542-5788 or email russlib@uga.edu

We're Having a Food Fight!

Are you ready for a good food fight?

Then we hope you'll join us on Saturday, March 28th in the cafeteria of Barrow Elementary School (100 Pinecrest Drive) as local chefs take on the School Lunch Challenge -- creating tasty dishes that meet USDA requirements for the National School Lunch Program for attendees to sample!

Building on the increased public interest in school lunches, and inspired by the ongoing exhibition, Food, Power, Politics: The Story of School Lunch currently on display in our gallery, the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, the Clarke County School District, the Athens Land Trust, Athens Farm to School, and UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences have partnered to plan a fun, educational event to engage the Athens community with the past, present, and future of the National School Lunch Program. 

The centerpiece of this event will be a cooking competition which invites participating teams, drawn from local restaurants and non-profit organizations, and advised by members of the Clarke County School District (CCSD) nutrition staff, to create dishes in accordance with USDA guidelines for the National School Lunch Program. Each team will create plates including meat/meat alternate, grain, and vegetable components that can appeal to a K-12 audience. Event attendees will be invited to a sample-size serving of each plate created, and will vote for a crowd favorite in each category. A panel of student judges drawn from CCSD schools will vote to determine an overall winner. The winning team’s plate will be incorporated into the CCSD school lunch menu during the 2015-2016 school year.

Attendees can also pick up information and talk to local representatives about sustainable agriculture, community gardens, and farm to school programs in the Athens community, and explore a display of materials related to the history of the National School Lunch Program. 

Competing teams will include The National, Heirloom Café and Fresh Market, newly opened Goodie Two Shoes, and the non-profit Athens Land Trust. Each team has been paired with one of the four local middle schools, and encouraged to incorporate that school’s colors, mascot, or other identifying features into their dish or plate presentation. The event will be free to the public but attendance will be capped at 150 people. Tickets are available through the Eventbrite website. 

Members of the planning committee hope parents and families associated with the local school system, as well as community groups and individuals interested in school lunch and related food initiatives will come out to the event. But, they hope that anyone who has a passion for healthy, delicious food will join the fun. 

“We hope to engage the Athens community with the topic of school lunch, providing some information about the history of the program, and helping to connect that history to the ongoing changes to the program through recent legislation on the federal level,” said organizer Jan Hebbard, outreach archivist at the Russell Library. “Hopefully this is a chance for community members to have some fun and also get a better understanding of school lunch locally, especially ongoing efforts to incorporate community gardens and local produce into cafeterias in CCSD.”

For more information, contact Jan Hebbard at jlevinso@uga.edu or (706) 542-5788. To obtain tickets visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/school-lunch-challenge-tickets-15847094085

“Took by Tuck”: Audley Tucker and the Photographs of the Democratic Party of Georgia

Last month, the Russell Library completed the year-long Georgia Political Parties Detailed Processing Project to make available the records of the Democratic Party of Georgia (DPG) and the Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP), funded by a generous grant of up to $58,777 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). Though she has wrapped up her work with the political parties’ records, project archivist Angelica Marini has left us with some additional blog posts to provide further insight into these collections.

For over twenty-five years, Audley Tucker served as the official photographer for the Democratic Party of Georgia (DPG). A University of Georgia graduate and a Phi Delta Theta fraternity brother of Governor Ernest Vandiver, Tucker was appointed as the DPG staff photographer in late 1970 by Governor-elect Jimmy Carter after he also named Tucker the “Governor’s Photographer for Special Events.” David Gambrell, then-chairman of the DPG, called Tucker an “excellent photographer” and an “outstanding Democrat.” (Rome News-Tribune, 1970)

Judging by the images found in the Democratic Party of Georgia Records, Tucker was an excellent photographer, documenting Democratic officials such as Carter, Senator Sam Nunn, and Georgia Governors George Busbee and Joe Frank Harris. He also captured lesser known individuals and  the campaigns of nearly forgotten Georgia politicians: Marge Thurman, DPG Chairman from 1974 to 1982; Mary Hitt, who forced Zell Miller into a runoff for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor in 1974; and Pinkie, a political fixture and proprietor of Pinkie Master’s Lounge in Savannah.

The photographs presented here include some of Tucker’s best, early Jimmy Carter images. As he often did, Tucker identified and described events and people in his own hand on the back of the photographs, making his images a unique and important part of the collection. For the image of Carter campaigning at a Fourth of July parade, Tucker noted, “My favorite photo--because of sign in background. Makes a good prop. I could not have set it up any better.” The photo shows Carter standing in the street, signing autographs, with a large “Carl Sanders for Governor” sign prominently in the frame. Tucker captured Carter speaking with the press later in the campaign and on victory night, November 3, 1970. Other images that night include campaign manager Hamilton Jordan, state representative Ward Edwards, and cousin Hugh Carter.

While he didn’t always provide substantive information for his photographs (the image of Congressman Carl Vinson and Jimmy Carter is simply identified as “Dublin,” and the 9th District Rally image only denotes that it was held in the 9th district in Gainesville), Tucker’s annotated photos often bore a simple credit line on the back -- “Took by Tuck.”

Overall, the Audley Tucker photographs offer a visual representation of the people and events that made up the DPG in the 1970s and 1980s and provide a different kind of record of political activity in the state during a period of Democratic dominance. They highlight important individuals and often capture the people who made the party function on the ground. His notes also provide important context for the people and political events, like the annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner, documented elsewhere in the collection. A searchable inventory of the Audley Tucker photographs can be found at DPG Records.

Jimmy Carter campaigning at a Fourth of July parade
in downtown Atlanta, 1970. 

Jimmy Carter speaks at the podium on the night of gubernatorial election, 
November 3, 1970.

Jimmy Carter celebrates his victory over Republican Hal Suit
in the 1970 Georgia gubernatorial race.

U.S. Congressman Carl Vinson chats with Governor Jimmy Carter
in Dublin, Georgia, circa 1971. 

Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Tommy Irvin,
U.S. Congressman for the 9th District Phil Landrum,
Governor Jimmy Carter, and U.S. Senator Sam Nunn
at a 9th District Rally in Gainesville, Georgia, circa 1975. 

Post by Angelica Marini, Project Archivist, Russell Library

It’s Party Time!: Georgia Political Parties Project Opens New Collections

In February 2014, the Russell Library embarked on a one-year project to process the records of the Democratic Party of Georgia (DPG) and the Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP), funded by a generous grant of up to $58,777 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). One year later, the project is complete!

The records of both parties are open and available for research and represent a significant contribution to understanding party politics in Georgia. The GAGOP records (1974-1999) include 47 linear feet of records and over 100 audiovisual items (1981-1998). The DPG records  (1960-2008) include 64 linear feet of paper records, 6.2 gigabytes of electronic records, and 574 audiovisual items. Finding aids, or guides, to the records of the GAGOP and the DPG are available by searching the Russell Library’s online database or clicking the links above.

Item from the Georgia Republican Party Records.

Throughout the last year, we’ve brought attention to some of the dynamic records in these collections on the Russell Library blog. Articles have touched on the physical processing of political records and how an archivist might approach retaining the “original order” of a collection while also providing better access to materials through arrangement and description. If you’re interested in this aspect of archives and the collections, check out the blog posts  “Getting the Party Started: Processing the Records of Georgia's Political Parties” and "‘I do not belong to any organized party’: Making Sense of the Democratic Party of Georgia Records.” For an exploration of the ways in which archivists process electronic records, our post, “Let’s Get Digital: Electronic Records Day 2014” looks at some of the records of the DPG that only exist in digital form.

Item from the Democratic Party of Georgia Records.

Other blogs have highlighted the stories to be found in these organizational records. "‘The Right Leadership at the Top:’ The Records of the Georgia Republican Party Chairman" provides an in-depth look at two important leaders in a critical period of political transitioning in the state. “Building the Party, One Point at a Time: The Georgia GOP’s Four Star Program” looks at one specific set of records that document an important push for grassroots development in the many counties of Georgia.

In the coming months, you’ll see additional posts exploring the DPG records. In February, we’ll share a photo essay showcasing the work of Audley Tucker, the official DPG photographer for over twenty years, who captured Jimmy Carter’s gubernatorial win in 1970 -- just a sampling of the many rich photographs in the DPG records. And in March, we will explore the inimitable Marge Thurman, a forgotten Chairman of the DPG, whose heart was reportedly as big as her hairdo.

The records of the GAGOP and the DPG document the inner workings of Georgia’s two major political parties. The era documented by these records is a pivotal and complex period in state and national politics; parties fought for supremacy in an evolving political climate that saw rapid political realignments. Each collection tells a different, though parallel, story about the parties’ group dynamics and organizational culture and, taken together, highlights a vital aspect of Georgia’s political history reveals much about the political history of the state, and nation, in the second half of the twentieth century.

Post by Angelica Marini, Project Archivist, Russell Library

Holiday Cheer from the Russell Library!

Inspired by a large knit American flag, the Russell Library's own Adriane Hanson (electronic records guru, knitter extraordinaire) created this miniature Georgia flag version as a holiday gift!

Adriane told us that to design the project, she used a combination of the specifications for the flag to get the internal proportions correct, and information from a flag request form to get the right length vs. height proportions. "Each stripe and the blue square were knit separately with a seed stitch and then pieced together," she said, adding that "the seal was made with felt and a sharpie, with a few modifications from the original to make it possible, and the seal and stars are sewn on.”

The changing design of the Georgia State Flag is quite interesting and political.  You can read more about it here: State Flags of Georgia

Sharing this photo to add a a little holiday cheer to your day. Happy holidays from the Russell Library!

Application Deadline Extended for Community Docent Program

The University of Georgia’s Richard B. Russell Building for Special Collections Libraries is extending the application deadline for participation in its docent program to Friday, January 9, 2015.

The Docent Corps is a skilled group of volunteers who provide tours of the exhibit galleries to visitors, ranging from fifth graders to adults. Docents are trained to highlight permanent and rotating exhibitions and to help increase awareness of the many resources offered by the three special collections libraries: The Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, The Walter J. Brown Media Archive and Peabody Awards Collections, and The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies.

A 10-week training program, hosted from Feb. 17 through Apr. 21, provides an opportunity for docents to meet curators, archivists, and other special collections staff, learn about the collections and techniques for leading tours, and become familiar with all parts of the Special Collections Libraries Building. Follow-up monthly meetings throughout the year provide opportunities to learn about new exhibits in the galleries and programs sponsored by the three special collections libraries.

The program seeks applicants who are enthusiastic, flexible, and open to working with visitors of all ages. No previous experience in the arts or humanities is required, but a love of history and experience with teaching or public speaking is desired. For more information about the training schedule and expectations, please visit the FAQ’s page. Interested individuals can apply online by visiting: http://www.libs.uga.edu/scl/contribute/docentapp.html

Applications must be submitted by Friday, January 9, 2015. Please direct any questions to Jan Hebbard at jhebbard@uga.edu or (706) 542-5788. Note: All candidates selected for admission to the docent program will be required to submit to a background investigation.

“I do not belong to any organized party”: Making Sense of the Democratic Party of Georgia Records

Note: In February of this year, the Russell Library embarked on a one-year project to process the records of the Democratic Party of Georgia (Georgia Democrats) and the Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP), funded by a generous grant of up to $58,777 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). Project archivist Angelica Marini has been providing a series of short articles throughout this year highlighting various aspects of the records as she works to organize, describe and make them available. In this blog post for the project, Angelica provides an introduction and overview of the records of the Democratic Party of Georgia, which are scheduled to open for research in January.

Governor-elect Jimmy Carter (left) and
David Gambrell, at the State Democratic Convention
in Macon, Georgia, 1970. 

In 1970, newly elected Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter appointed David Gambrell to the position of state Democratic Party Chairman. To celebrate the appointment, Democratic friends gave him a cake in the shape of a donkey. Written across the donkey in icing was Will Roger’s infamous quote about Democratic Party politics: “I do not belong to any organized party. I am a Democrat.”

This satirical Will Rogers quote unintentionally reflects some of the major problems I faced as I began making sense of the DPG’s records. When the party donated its records to the Russell Library, they were not especially disorganized, but it took considerable time to determine how the records were arranged and used by the party. What I discovered is that the DPG records document the party’s actions and work more than political plans, elections, and campaigns.

The Democratic Party of Georgia Records (1962-2007) cover an historic period of Democratic domination in state politics. The DPG records offer researchers an inside look at a strong and powerful organization but also one that was minimally organized. While the party was organized centrally at state party headquarters, they exercised their political power with a very lean organizational structure. The bulk of the collection (1968-1990) is comprised of records created and accumulated by officials and staff of the DPG. The records are arranged in seven series that represent the functions and organization of the party: I. Administrative, II. County and District, III. Financial, IV. Committees and Conventions, V. Campaigns and Elections, and VI. Photographs and Ephemera, and VII. Audiovisual Materials.

Prior to the Civil Rights movement and the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the DPG was a racially conservative party committed to the system of segregation. The Civil Rights movement changed the predominantly white Democratic Party into an organization that better reflected the racial dynamics of the state. In the 1970s, the formerly conservative party aligned with more liberal national policies and platforms; it was a party in transition.

In 1975, the Democrats weathered major organizational changes and convened its first ever Charter Convention, where they codified policies, outlined new goals, and drafted new rules for delegate selection. Some of these changes created greater access for minorities as affirmative action became an effective way of including those who were formerly excluded by law and tradition. These kinds of changes were common for Democratic parties in southern states after the Civil Rights movement as engrained ties to Jim Crow were systematically transformed through legislation as well as in the regional political culture.

In the late 1970s, all county committees were charged with reorganizing according to the rules of the new state charter; other changes loosened the ties to state government and the role of the governor in the party. These changes created greater diversity within party politics but also in the electorate at large. The records of the DPG document some of the most important political transitions specific to the state but also to region-wide changes that affected the national political landscape.

The earliest records in the collection, which date from the 1960s, are primarily financial and administrative, documenting the party’s involvement in county, state, and national politics. The day-to-day activity and function of the state party are reflected in administrative correspondence. Letters to and from the Chairmen and Executive Directors relate to a number of topics including finances, organization, and membership. The financial records also tell part of the administrative story as fundraising records show a party bankrolled by major events like the Dollars for Democrats campaign and the annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.

The largest series of records, Committees and Conventions, document the work of local and statewide committees and the conventions that party members attended. The Democratic Party was an organization with power dispersed throughout the state. The major work of the party was done at the local level and the interactions between the state party staff and their county, district, and regional committees and chairs and these records reflect a party in action. The State Democratic Executive Committee, the State Democratic Committee of Georgia, Standing Committees, Special Committees, Democratic County Committees, and Precinct Coordinators all had important roles in making the party function in power. Committees and conventions may seem like two separate organizational functions, but the records they produced were inseparable; most of the committees’ work was made official through convention dialogue and voting.

Congratulatory cake, featuring quote by Will Rogers,
for David Gambrell, Chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, 1970.

Overall, The Democratic Party of Georgia Records are an important source for understanding the historic and dramatic changes in the political landscape of the state and region. The records document the active work carried out by the party rather than the strategy and deliberation behind political platforms and policy planning. The DPG, as it existed in the late twentieth century, was the political power in the state and, as a result, did not generate the kind of political plans that the GAGOP did in their formative years. What these records demonstrate instead is how the party operated throughout the state. Administrative and financial records reflect an existing system of political activity related to fundraising with minimal interference from state headquarters. County and district materials reflect the power of distinct groups within the state party. Notably, the records also have a significant digital component, which you can read about in an earlier blog post, Let’s Get Digital!: Electronic Records Day 2014.

Post by Angelica Marini, Project Archivist, Russell Library