My digital project proposal is a website on African-American churches and schools in Culpeper County, Virginia from 1866 to the the present (for churches) and to integration (for schools). The website will include images and locations of the churches and schools and will have essays that provide historical context. The broad category of the website will be local history and a teaching tool. Like the Brainerd, Kansas website I plan on having a guestbook section aimed at fostering a sense of community for current and former residents of Culpeper County with memories of the one room school houses and black churches.
The Museum of Culpeper History, where I am an intern this semester and Spring 2005, is conducting a project to catalogue and document all African-American churches, schools, and communities in Culpeper. We have already received feedback from many former Culpeper residents throughout the mid-Atlantic region with memories of segregation. Thus, I believe that there is much potential for the guestbook section. I have discussed the assignment with the director of the Museum and she has put me in contact with their webmaster with the goal of turning the proposal into an actual part of their website as part of their mission statement of enhancing local history and creating teaching tools for the county schools.
Posted by Matt Mc at October 28, 2004 07:54 AM