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Introduction to Social Documentary

Program Title: Introduction to Social Documentary
Academic Credits: 3 in School of Journalism, 3 in Global Service-Learning
Location: Alabama and Georgia, USA
Instructor: Jen Saffron
Dates: May 16 - May 30, 2008

Amizade Student Application (pdf)

Through introductory-level video production and a service-learning project in Alabama, this course introduces students to key aspects of the US Civil Rights movement and the important role that community organizers have played in the movement. Students will travel to the southern states of Alabama and Georgia for direct experience with community organizers and visits to historical sites, churches, museums, and other places that were and are integral to addressing equality rights in the United States. Students will learn ethnographic interview technique, ensemble video production and basic editing in order to create a short video that documents their experience in learning about equality rights.  The video project will be integrated into their service project, completely, since the video is the service project.

Lectures, videos, and readings will cover topics such as: “race beat” journalism of the late 50s/early 60s; African American history; collective and personal identity; integration of schools; racial discrimination and the law; voting rights, and hate crimes. Participants will witness important sites along the Alabama Civil Rights Museum Trail, including: the route of the march from Selma; the Tuskegee Institute; and the 16th Street Baptist Church, and the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

One aspect of this course is to engage students with students from other institutions, such as Tuskegee.  In addition to peer interaction, students, the facilitator and faculty will stay for part of the trip in home stays in Selma.  This provides an opportunity for immersion in the culture and neighborhoods in which major civil rights events took place, and to stay directly with community leaders.  Because this is a video production class, students cultivate direct access to community leaders and others, in order to interview them, directly.

Weblinks

Rosa Parks Museum and Library
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
16th Street Baptist Church
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
George Washington Carver Museum
Tuskegee University
MLK Center