On Monday, March 2nd, the new website, One Person, One Vote: The Legacy of SNCC and the Fight for Voting Rights, went live. The launch represented an unprecedented feat of collaboration between activists, scholars, archivists, digital specialists, and students. In a year and a half, this group went from wanting to tell a grassroots story of SNCC’s voting rights activism to bringing that idea to fruition in a documentary website.
So what did it take to get there? The short answer is a dedicated group of people who believed in a common goal, mobilized resources, put in the work, and trusted each other’s knowledge and expertise enough to bring the project to life. Here’s a brief look at the people behind-the-scenes:
Advisory Board: Made up of representatives of the SNCC Legacy Project, Duke Libraries, and the Center for Documentary Studies, the Advisory Board tackled the monumental task of raising funds, making a way, and ensuring the future of the project.
Editorial Board: One Person, One Vote site has content galore. It features 82 profiles, multimedia stories, an interactive timeline, and map that collectively tell a story of SNCC’s voting rights activism. The enormous task of prioritizing content fell to the Editorial Board. Three historians, three SNCC veterans, and three Duke Libraries staff spent long hours debating the details of who and what to include and how to do it.
Project Team: Once the Editorial Board prioritized content, it was the Project Team’s job to carry out the work. Made up of six undergrads, two grad students, and one intern, the Project Team researched and wrote profiles and created the first drafts of the site’s content.
Visiting Activist Scholars: SNCC veterans and Editorial Board members, Charlie Cobb and Judy Richardson, came to Duke during the 2014 – 2015 academic year to advise the Project Team and work with the Project Manager in creating content for One Person, One Vote. As the students worked to write history from the perspective of the activists and local people, the Visiting Activist Scholars guided them, serving as the project’s “SNCC eyes.”
Design Contractors: The One Person, One Vote Project hired The Splinter Group to design and create a WordPress theme for the site with input from the Editorial Board.
Duke Libraries Digital Specialists: The amazing people in Duke Libraries’ Digital Production Center and Digital Projects turned One Person, One Vote into a reality. They digitized archival material, built new features, problem-solved, and did a thousand other essential tasks that made One Person, One Vote the functional, sleek, and beautiful site that it is.
Of course, this is only the short list. Many more people within the SNCC Legacy Project, the Center for Documentary Studies, and Duke Libraries arranged meetings and travel plans, designed postcards and wrote press releases, and gave their thoughts and ideas throughout the process. One Person, One Vote is unquestionably the work of many and represents a new way for activists, scholars, and librarians to partner in telling a people’s history.