The University Library recently announced it has acquired approximately 47,000 civil rights movement documents from History Prof. Julian Bond.
Library Communications Director Charlotte Morford said the collection includes "photos, drafts of more than 300 speeches, audio recordings and other correspondence."
Christian Dupont, director of the Special Collections Library, where the documents are physically housed, maintained that the value of this collection is high.
"The importance is in the record of his life as a civil rights leader," Dupont said. "It's an organic record of his life, of political service and civil rights activism."
Dupont said the Special Collections Library acquired the documents from Bond's personal collection after the professor donated them.
"These are things that he had at his home or office," he said. "Copies of his speeches, letters, stuff when he was in the Georgia legislature."
Dupont said library officials hope these documents will become a valuable historical resource for members of the University community.
"We're really pleased to have this opportunity to be entrusted with the papers of a prominent civil rights leader," Dupont said, "Students, faculty, the general public can come and read or work with these things, which is something they wouldn't do if they were in his personal possession."
Morford said the collection is catalogued on Virgo and noted that the documents are available in the library, if a member of the University community wishes to view them.
"One of the things that we try to do here is encourage students to use special collections and to learn about new ways of looking at history by using those materials," she said.
--compiled by Alexandra Hemenway
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