VCU professor to assist with Library of Congress Civil Rights Project

By Malorie Burkett

A Virginia Commonwealth University professor will serve as the principal investigator and interviewer in Central Virginia for the Library of Congress’ Voices of Civil Rights project.

Clarence W. Thomas, Ph.D., associate professor in Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Mass Communications, will work on the project, which is sponsored by the AARP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Library of Congress. The project’s goal is to collect and preserve the stories of the Civil Rights movement. The information will become part of a repository at the Library of Congress and will be used for scholarly investigation in the future.

The project already has collected several thousand accounts of the movement and on Feb. 12, at 8 p.m., The History Channel will present a television special on the work already finished.

According to Thomas, Voices of Civil Rights mirrors the focus of a historical research project known as Voices of Slavery or the Slave Narratives, which forms the major repository of stories and accounts of the lives of the remaining former slaves. The collection recently was used as the basis for an HBO television series titled “Slave Narratives,” in which celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett presented and illustrated the lives of slaves.

“In terms of the history of African-Americans, Voices of Civil Rights is the most significant historical research project since the Slave Narratives,” said Thomas. “If we do this properly it will give future historians fertile ground to work with as they tell the story of struggle for civil rights in the United States.”

Thomas is responsible for selecting and interviewing subjects, promotion of the project, and enlisting and coordinating other interviewers and volunteers. His research will be submitted to the Library of Congress, which will house and manage the archives. 

For more information on Voices of Civil Rights, visit http://www.voicesofcivilrights.org/.