Her presentation is expected to highlight the stories she collected during research for the book, as well as explain the significance of images and stories selected for the Atlanta BeltLine exhibit.
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| Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, Ph. D., author of Images of America: Atlanta and the Civil Rights Movement, 1944-1968 will speak and sign books at the Post Road Library. (Photo courtesy of The Historian in Heels, Dr. Karcheik Sims-Alvarado) |
"This book is a portable exhibition. The photographs tell a beautiful narrative of the struggle, fortitude, and organizational strength of a people determined to eradicate Jim Crow segregation once and for all,” says Dr. Sims-Alvarado.
Her work on the Atlanta BeltLine exhibition was unveiled last summer and will run through December 1. The exhibit spans 4 miles of the Eastside and Westside Atlanta BeltLine trails and is the longest outdoor exhibition on civil and human rights in the United States.
Aside from documenting the stories of the civil rights movement in Atlanta, Dr. Sims-Alvarado’s own life story is interesting.
In an interview this summer with Atlanta radio station WABE, Dr. Sims-Alvarado explained that she knew she wanted to be a historian since she was nine years old.
“My mother had this book that was published by Time magazine. It was called ‘Brother Against Brother.’ It was about the Civil War [.] I would find myself sitting up late at night, sometimes early in the morning, looking at this book. And I found myself studying the photographs as opposed to reading the text. And the first image that I saw, that really just stuck with me, and I knew that I had to tell the stories of those who came before me, was an image of Frederick Douglass.”
Dr. Sims-Alvarado is accomplishing her goal of studying and documenting the history and culture of African Americans, particularly in Atlanta. She first earned a B.A. in Mass Media Arts and a M.A. in African and African-American Studies from Clark Atlanta University, and then a Ph.D. in History from Georgia State University. She is currently pursuing a M.A. degree in Museum Studies from Harvard University.
Whether in the classroom, museum, or in the field, she has sought to document and to teach the African-American odyssey through mediums and methods that engage people of ages and backgrounds.
In fact, she wrote Images of America: Atlanta and the Civil Rights Movement, 1944-1968 with teenage readers in mind.
In an interview with The Atlanta Voice last year, Dr. Sims-Alvarado explained that she focused on the sort of book that she would have been interested in as a teenager:
“There is so much about us that is left out of text books that are provided to young folk. I wanted to create something for them so that they could see themselves in print, but also to inspire them. They can see for themselves how this generation did so much with so little resources and how mighty you can be with just a handful of individuals.”
Come hear stories from the book and learn more about Dr. Sims-Alvarado’s work with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta History Center, Herndon Home Museum, and the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.
Admission to the program is free and open to the public. Copies of Images of America: Atlanta and the Civil Rights Movement, 1944-1968 will be available for purchase.
For more information, please visit www.forsythpl.org.
