The WSB Newsfilm Collection contains over 5 million feet of newsfilm dating from 1949 to 1981. Footage pertaining to the integration of UGA includes clips of public officials - such as the governor and members of the Board of Regents - making statements, Holmes and Hunter-Gault on campus at the university, and student reactions in Athens..
The Peabody Awards Collection contains all entries to the George Foster Peabody Awards, the oldest and most prestigious award in electronic media. Among the over 80,000 programs in the collection is a 1961 documentary that explored school desegregation in Atlanta called A Tale of Two Cities, 1961.
"A Tale of Two Cities, 1961 consists of two half-hour programs describing the manner in which Atlanta and Dallas prepared for school integration in the fall of 1961. Each program contains interviews with officials, civic leaders and others directly involved in each city in the preparation for public school de-segregation."--1961 Peabody Digest.
Part 1 focuses on Atlanta. Reporter Ed Planer discusses the integration of the University of Georgia, widely thought to have paved the way for a peaceful transition in Atlanta schools. Includes interviews with School Board president Jim O’Callaghan; Mrs. Phillip Hammer of Organizations Assisting Schools In September, or O.A.S.I.S.; "race mixing" foe Lester Maddox; the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Chief of Police Herbert Jenkins; and Atlanta mayor William Hartsfield, who says that Atlanta is "a city too busy to hate." The consensus on all sides is that, since desegregation is now legally mandated, peaceful integration is in everyone’s best interests and is likely to occur. Includes views of downtown Atlanta streets and aerial views of the city. Corporon concludes by noting that Atlanta studied New Orleans’ problematic, violent school integration as a negative example.
