The Foot Soldier Project is a collaborative and interdisciplinary project. The research team for the project includes scholars from the fields of social work, education, history, journalism, African American Studies, and the Richard B. Russell Library. Partners include:
DR. DERRICK ALRIDGE, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
Derrick P. Alridge, Professor of Education at the University of Virginia and Co-Director of the Foot Soldier Project is a former high school history teacher. In addition to his research and production work for the FSP documentaries, he has also spearhead the Project’s outreach educational work on critiquing textbooks and reaching out to students. His major textbook study, “The Limits of Master Narrative in History Textbooks: An Analysis of Representations of Martin Luther King, Jr.” is a signature outcome of the FSP research and is well-cited in studies of textbooks about the Civil Rights Movement. The article, which is cited in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching the Movement publication, challenges teachers to look beyond the more popularized notions of Dr. King as the primary promoter of the Movement. Instead, it encourages to teachers to teach about the many unknown and unsung participants of the Movement who made Dr. King’s work possible.
DR. LLEWELLYN CORNELIUS, DONALD L. HOLLOWELL DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND CIVIL RIGHTS STUDIES
Llewellyn J. Cornelius has more than 19 years of experience in community-based participatory research and more than 34 years of experience in psychosocial research, as well as survey and evaluation research. He has worked in tandem with researchers, administrators and consumers in the design, implementation and evaluation of interventions that focused on improving the health and well-being of under resourced communities.
For the last 16 years he taught a doctoral research practicum at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, for which he assisted students in the development, pilot testing and implementation of surveys. Cornelius’ prevention research focuses on developing community-responsive, culturally appropriate educational, attitudinal and behavioral change interventions as well as examining the barriers to the successful adoption of interventions by individuals, practitioners and communities.
Cornelius has been recognized as the fifth most-cited African American scholar in social work in a study published in the journal Research on Social Work Practice. In May of 2014 Oxford University Press published A Social Justice Approach for Survey Design and Analysis, which he co-authored with Donna Harrington. His book, Designing and Conducting Health Surveys: A Comprehensive Guide, has been cited almost 1,200 times since it was published in 2006 and is now in a fourth edition.
DR. MICHELLE G. COOK, ASSOCIATE PROVOST & CHIEF DIVERSITY OFFICER, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
Dr. Michelle G. Cook is the Associate Provost & Chief Diversity Officer for the University of Georgia. Dr. Cook is responsible for planning and implementing diversity programs and initiatives for the University. She collaborates with senior administration, administrative, academic and other units and constituents to support and enhance diversity goals. She also develops and supports programs related to the recruitment and retention of diverse students, faculty and staff. She represents the University on national and University System of Georgia committees regarding diversity in higher education and participates in outreach and community engagement activities that address diversity initiatives and needs throughout the state. Dr. Cook is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Office of Institutional Diversity, including supervision of staff, budget development and oversight and operational priorities. She has previously served as an Associate Dean and Professor in the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.
DR. VICKI CRAWFORD, DIRECTOR, MOREHOUSE COLLEGE MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. COLLECTION
Dr. Vicki Crawford is an educational administrator and scholar of the African American freedom struggle. She is an editor of the groundbreaking volume of essays, Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers which was one of the first collections published in the early 1990s to address the underrepresented role of women in the Civil Rights Movement. Her scholarship also includes a number of book chapters and essays such as “African American Women in the Twenty-First Century: The Continuing Challenge,” in the American Woman 2000; several entries in Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia as well as a book chapter in Sisters in the Struggle: Women in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. Her background and interest in public history have led to numerous seminar and workshop presentations for middle and high school teachers, notably her work with the Atlanta History Center to develop a Teaching Tour of the Civil Rights Movement, seminar at Washington University for the St. Louis Consolidated School District and a workshop for the History Teachers’ Alliance at Furman University. Dr. Crawford has traveled throughout the south extensively where she interviewed some of the Civil Rights Movement’s most notable grassroots activists. As a trained oral historian, she has organized workshops on community oral history and assisted in curating exhibitions. Also, she is a frequent speaker for public programs, having interviewed Dr. John Hope Franklin at the Auburn Avenue Research Library in Atlanta and Dr. Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women for large public audiences.
Dr. Crawford received her Ph.D. degree from Emory University in the field of American Studies with a concentration in twentieth century African American history. Following this, she completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship as a Carolina Minority Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In 1992, she was selected as a Harvard Administrative Fellow where she worked in the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College. She has been on the faculties at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the State University of West Georgia and Clark Atlanta University. She has received teaching awards such as the distinguished Lilly Teaching Fellowship Award at the University of Massachusetts and the Vulcan Award for Teaching Excellence at Clark Atlanta University. As a Fulbright Fellow, Dr. Crawford traveled to Ghana and Cameroon, West Africa and participated in the Brethren Colleges Abroad Program to Cuba. Dr. Crawford has a passion for undergraduate teaching and is very interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the humanities. She has served as a grant reviewer for both the Georgia Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Also, she served as an historical advisor and conducted interviews for a documentary on Women in the Civil Rights Movement for the National Education Association (NEA).
In addition to her scholarly expertise, Dr. Crawford has spent ten years as an academic administrator and has sought to enhance her administrative skills through participation in the American Council on Education’s National Leadership Forum for Women Administrators. Currently, she is Director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection where she is developing campus-based programming in support of the Collection and creating opportunities for teaching, research and scholarship that promote the legacy of Dr. King.
DR. MAURICE C. DANIELS, PROFESSOR EMERITUS
Maurice C. Daniels is dean and professor emeritus of the School of Social Work at the University of Georgia and is founder and director of The Foot Soldier Project for Civil Rights Studies. He is the author of Saving the Soul of Georgia: Donald L. Hollowell and the Struggle for Civil Rights, Horace T. Ward: Desegregation of the University of Georgia, Civil Rights Advocacy, and Jurisprudence, and Ground Crew: The Fight to End Segregation at Georgia State University (forthcoming, University of Georgia Press, 2019).
Daniels is senior researcher and executive producer of a number of public television documentaries, including Donald L. Hollowell: Foot Soldier for Equal Justice, Horace T. Ward: Foot Soldier for Equal Justice, Hamilton Earl Holmes: The Legacy Continues, and Mary Frances Early: The Quiet Trailblazer.
As dean of the School of Social Work, Daniels advanced interdisciplinary scholarship and social justice through the development of new degrees, endowed professorships and a research center. During his tenure, the school created dual social work degrees in law, public health and divinity—each one a first for the state of Georgia. He also promoted the endowment of two professorships: the Donald L. Hollowell Distinguished Professorship of Social Justice and Civil Rights Studies—the university’s inaugural distinguished professorship named for an African American—and the Georgia Athletic Association Professorship in Health and Well-Being. In addition, Daniels ushered the creation of the interdisciplinary Center for Social Justice, Human and Civil Rights.
Prior to becoming dean, Daniels served as associate dean, director of the Master of Social Work degree program, and director of the Patricia Roberts Harris Fellowship Program at the University of Georgia. He is the author of various scholarly articles and national conference papers focusing on civil rights and social justice issues and principal investigator of several extramural grants.
Honored by professional and community-based organizations repeatedly for his research, teaching and service, Daniels is the recipient of the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council’s Award for Excellence in Research, the Georgia Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers’ Distinguished Social Work Practice Award and David L. Levine Excellence in Education and Ethics Award, Athens’ Economic Justice Coalition’s Dr. Ray McNair Economic Justice Award, Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society’s Love of Learning Award, Indiana University School of Education’s Distinguished Alumni Award, Athens Area Habitat for Humanity’s Outstanding Service Award, and the Athens-Clarke County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Freedom Fund Award. In 2004 the 113th General Assembly of the Indiana House of Representatives honored Daniels with House Resolution No. 74, which recognized his “accomplishments in the areas of civil and human rights and social justice.”
Daniels is also the recipient of numerous awards bestowed by his colleagues at the University of Georgia, including the President’s Fulfilling the Dream Award, the Institute for African American Studies’ Founders Award, the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Senior Teaching Fellowship, the School of Social Work’s Outstanding Research Award, and several Outstanding Achievement Awards from the Black Faculty and Staff Organization.
Daniels holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, a Master’s degree in Social Work, and a Doctoral degree in Higher Education from Indiana University. In addition to his scholarly work, he is active in civil rights and social reform organizations. Daniels is a charter member and President of the Athens Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). He is co-founder of Athens Area Habitat for Humanity and the UGA Black Faculty and Staff Organization and played a key role in the establishment of the UGA Institute for African American Studies, Office of Minority Services and Programs (now the Office of Multicultural Services and Programs) and the Office of Institutional Diversity. Daniels is a life member of the NAACP, ASALH, and the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
Daniels serves as a deacon in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, West, in Athens, Georgia.
DR. CYNTHIA DILLARD, MARY FRANCES EARLY PROFESSOR OF TEACHER EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
Dr. Cynthia Dillard is the Mary Frances Early Endowed Professor of Teacher Education in the University of Georgia College of Education. Her responsibilities include teaching under/graduate-level courses in education, Master’s and doctoral student advising and various research and service initiatives related to diversity, multiculturalism, Africa and diaspora studies and spirituality. She has extensively researched multicultural and equity studies in education and is experienced in teaching early childhood and social studies education. In her previous roles at Ohio State University, Dr. Dillard provided leadership for the development and implementation of comprehensive and strategic plans for equity and diversity initiatives. She was also actively involved administration, fiscal planning and management, assistance with corporate and foundation solicitation, student recruitment and retention programming, implementing student, staff and faculty professional development and cultural awareness.
DR. CHERYL DOZIER, PRESIDENT, SAVANNAH STATE UNIVERSITY
Cheryl D. Dozier is currently serving as president of Savannah State University, after working in an interim capacity for a year. Prior to joining SSU, she served as the chief diversity officer and associate provost for Institutional Diversity at the University of Georgia (UGA). She is a full professor in the School of Social Work and the former director of the Ghana Study Abroad Program (2004-2010). She is the lead co-principal investigator for the Peach State Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, a $4.9M grant funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). In addition, she is a faculty researcher with the Foot Soldier Project for Civil Rights Studies and Research. Her previous position was the assistant vice president of Academic Affairs at the UGA Gwinnett Campus. Dozier is also an affiliate faculty member and advisory board member of the African Studies Institute and Institute of African American Studies.
Dozier has published widely in professional journals and books and is a national trainer/consultant. She is the president (2011-2013) of the Georgia Association for Women in Higher Education and an active member of many professional and civic organizations, including the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, National Association of Black Social Workers; and a former member of the Whitney M. Young Jr. School of Social Work, National Board of Advisors at Clark Atlanta University.
DR. TRACEY D. FORD, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE, NORTH CAROLINA A & T STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Tracey D. Ford is the Director of the Center for Academic Excellence (CAE) at North Carolina A&T State University. The CAE provides advising and academic support services for all students with a special emphasis on new freshmen. CAE services include tutoring, supplemental instruction, and developmental mathematics and reading courses. Dr. Ford is the co-chairperson of the Chancellor’s Commission for the Review of Student Success and is a member of the Enrollment Management Team, Institutional Effectiveness Council and chairs the University Wide Retention Committee. She created Project MARCH (Male Aggies Resolved to Change History), a retention and graduation initiative for men of color at A&T. Dr. Ford came to A&T from the University of Georgia, (Athens), home of the Bulldogs. At UGA, Dr. Ford served as the assistant director of the African American Cultural Center (AACC) where she developed new academic programs, coordinated major programs and pre-collegiate initiatives, and enhanced the student leadership development program. Previously, as the director of the Office of Institutional Diversity (OID), she had oversight of several campus diversity initiatives, including coordinating the strategic planning process for OID, and directing ASPIRE, a pre-collegiate program. She has taught courses at Athens Technical College, UGA Upward Bound and the University of Phoenix.
Her research and scholarly interests include K-12 and higher education policies, retention and pre-college intervention programs. Dr. Ford’s volunteerism and community service confirm her commitment to education and youth development as evidenced through her work with the NAACP and the Clarke County (Georgia) School District. In 2007, she received the NAACP National Advisor of the Year award and the UGA Student Organization Advisor of the Year.
Dr. Ford earned her undergraduate degree in biology from Norfolk State University, her masters in genetics from Howard University, and her doctorate in higher education from the University of Georgia.
AMY S. GELLINS
Amy S. Gellins is a native of Savannah, Georgia, and was educated in Georgia’s public school system. She received her B.A. degree in 1982 and her J.D. degree in 1985 from The University of Georgia. Gellins has spent most of her career assisting individuals who otherwise could not afford to pay for legal representation. From 1986-2003, she represented public and private employees in federal civil rights cases. She was honored to appear before the Honorable Horace T. Ward in two such cases. Gellins served as an Adjunct Professor at UGA’s School of Law from 1999-2003, assisting with public interest-related courses including one on “Race and the Law.” In April, 2002, she received recognition as the Outstanding Public Interest Attorney from The University of Georgia School of Law’s Equal Justice Foundation. From 2001-2005, Gellins directed the Athens Justice Project, a non-profit law firm representing indigent individuals in pending criminal cases and assisting with their efforts to become productive citizens. Since 2006, she also has worked as a senior attorney for the Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County, Georgia.
Gellins has appeared in state and federal trial and appellate courts, and has lectured at numerous legal seminars on employee rights and other legal issues. She has served as a member of various committees, including the Clarke County School District’s Multicultural Task Force, Partners for a Prosperous Athens (housing subcommittee), and the Athens-Clarke County Criminal Justice Task Force (as assigned staff).
DR. R. BAXTER MILLER, PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
R. Baxter Miller (Ph.D., Brown 1974), one of nine Senior Teaching Fellows at the University in 1994-95, is a member of the Teaching Academy. He was a United Negro College Fund Distinguished Scholar at Xavier University in New Orleans and Mellon Visiting Professor at the University of San Francisco. For fifteen years he was on the faculty at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville at which he was a Lindsay Young Professor of the Humanities and English for 1986-87. For the last nineteen years, he continues to be Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Georgia. His ten books include the inter¬nationally acclaimed Black American Literature and Humanism (Kentucky 1981), for which he wrote the historical introduction and final essay, and The Art and Imagination of Langston Hughes (1989; Kentucky, paperback 2006), which won the American Book Award for 1991.
Much of his published and revised oeuvre appears as The Artistry of Memory (Mellen 2008). His new book entitled On the Ruins of Modernity: New Chicago Renaissance from Wright to Fair will be published by Common Ground in 2011 at the Research Center of the University of Illinois. His Reference Guide to Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks (G. K. Hall, 1978) is a standard source, and his Black American Poets between Worlds, 1940-1960 (Tennessee 1986) an academic bestseller. Author of The Southern Trace in Black Critical Theory, a commissioned monograph for the Xavier Review Press (December 1991), he has written an unbroken string of publication across thirty-seven years. He is one of the five co-authors and co-editors who completed the Riverside edition, Call and Response: African American Tradition in Literature (Houghton Mifflin, 1998). For the work, he wrote three hundred manuscript pages of new critical assessments spanning the nineteenth to twentieth centuries, particularly the period of 1915-1945 and modern poetry. The editor of “The Short Stories,” Collected Works of Langston Hughes 15 (Missouri 2002), he became the invited contributor of the biography in the Historical Guide of Langston Hughes (Oxford 2004). His Critical Insights: Langston Hughes, a contracted edition, will appear from Salem Press, the print division of EBSCO in 2012.
The author of scores of chapters, articles, review-essays, and reviews in scholarly journals, Miller has written a commissioned essay for National Biography (Oxford) and a foreword for classic reprints such as Fire in the Flint by Walter White (Georgia 1995), along with chapter nineteen for American Literary Scholarship (Duke). Often his essays have appeared in publications such as Southern Literary Journal, African American Review, and the International Journal for the Humanities. He has presented his research findings at the International conference of Narrative Theory in Nice, France; the University of Granada in Spain; the Nkrumah University in Kumasi, Ghana; and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. In 2007 Miller was invited to accept a Department of State grant, on behalf of the American Embassy, to deliver a course of lectures at the Belarusian State University and Minsk Linguistic University and to deliver a keynote address at the American Studies Conference of Eastern Europe. Since then he has delivered a research paper, at the International Centennial Conference on Richard Wright at the American University of Paris during the summer of 2008, which became the lead chapter in Richard Wright: New Readings in the 21st Century (Palgrave 2011).
Miller’s record of achievement appears in International Authors and Writers Who’s Who (1986), Who’s Who among Black Americans (1975), Who’s Who in American Education (1996), Who’s Who in America (1996), Who’s Who among America’s Teachers (2004) and Who’s Who in the World (1996). Executive Editor of The Langston Hughes Review, he is a past president of the Langston Hughes Society and founder of the Division of Black American Literature and Culture in the Modern Language Association. In 200l he received the Langston Hughes Prize for his work as “scholar, editor, and steward” of the legacy; and in 2010 the Ford-Turpin award for distinguished scholarship in African American Studies.
JANICE REAVES, DIRECTOR OF MARKETING & COMMUNITY RELATIONS, GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Janice Reaves is director of Marketing & Community Relations for the Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL), a position she’s held since 2000. She is responsible for the department’s marketing strategy and directs publicity programs to targeted audiences of jobseekers and employers. She also serves as editor of the Labor Department’s official newsletter, The Beacon and produces GDOL’s annual televised job fair which airs live on Georgia Public Broadcasting.
Ms. Reaves served as producer/director for Foot Soldier for Equal Justice, a two-part, award-winning public television documentary that focuses on the life of federal Judge Horace T. Ward. She was the producer for more than thirty rare interviews of civil rights figures and leading public officials from Georgia and around the country, including Ward and fellow federal judge Constance Baker Motley, attorneys Donald Hollowell and Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Dr. Hamilton Earl Holmes, former U.S. senator Herman Talmadge, and former Georgia governor Ernest Vandiver. These interviews are now archived in the historical collection of the Russell Library Foot Soldier Project. Reaves also served as producer for the television documentary: Hamilton E. Holmes: The Legacy Continues, which has aired numerous times on Georgia Public Broadcasting, and continues her work as a producer with the Foot Soldier Project.
She is a member of the National Association of Broadcast Journalist, a graduate of Valdosta State University (VSU) and will receive her MPA this spring from VSU. She has more than 15 years of experience as a television producer/ director.
JILL SEVERN, ACCESS AND OUTREACH ARCHIVIST, RICHARD B. RUSSELL LIBRARY FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH AND STUDIES
Jill Severn is the head of the Access and Outreach Unit and the Director of the Russell Forum for Civic Life in Georgia for Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at The University of Georgia. She has been an archivist with the Russell Library since 1997. As part of her work to raise awareness of the collections and services of the Russell Library, Ms. Severn works to build and develop collaborative relationships with complementary organizations such as the Foot Soldier Project for Civil Rights Studies. She also oversees efforts by the Russell Library to expand and refine services to current and potential users.
Ms. Severn is the author of “Adventures in the Third Dimension: The Place of Artifacts in the Archives,” an article that appears in An American Political Archives Reader, Scarecrow Press, 2009. Ms. Severn is a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists and an active member of the Society of American Archivists. She also serves as a member of the Advisory Committee for the American Library Association’s Center for Civic Life.
SHERYL VOGT, DIRECTOR, RICHARD B. RUSSELL LIBRARY FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH AND STUDIES
Sheryl B. Vogt is director of the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia Libraries, a position she has held since 1979. Responsible for the administration and development of the Russell Library, she has fostered a program that acquires, preserves, and makes available historical materials representing the broadest range of modern political and policy subject matter and engages in strategic partnerships such as those with the university’s Foot Soldier Project and the Center for International Trade and Security. Ms. Vogt is a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists and a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists. She holds appointments to the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress and the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board.
Currently, Ms. Vogt serves as President of the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress. She is the author of various articles and national conference papers on congressional archives and holdings of the Russell Library.
The Foot Soldier Project for Civil Rights Studies 