Prominent Atlantans Participate in Back to School with the History Makers

More than 35 prominent Atlantans participated in the 2nd annual Back to School With The HistoryMakers program on Friday.

Atlanta's HistoryMakers included former U.N. Ambassador and former mayor of Atlanta Andrew Jackson Young; executive producer for the television series House of Payne Reuben Cannon; Dr. Thomas Cole, former president of Clark Atlanta University and his wife, Judge Brenda Cole.  [See the attached grid for full listing of participating HistoryMakers and schools in the Atlanta-area]. 

The HistoryMakers is the nation’s largest African-American video oral history archive. Some of the 500 participants across the country particpated this year including: Senior Advisor and Assistant to President Obama, Valerie Jarret; actress Gabrielle Union; Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick; hip-hop artist/actor/author Common; singer/actress Melba Moore; Broadway choreographer George Faison; poet Nikki Giovanni; actress Marla Gibbs (227, The Jeffersons); Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun; actress T’Keyah Crystal Keymah (In Living Color, The Cosby Show); and poet/author Sonia Sanchez.

The HistoryMakers’ Founder and Executive Director, Julieanna Richardson, says she launched the Back-to-School With The HistoryMakers initiative to respond to President Obama’s call for public service in a real and meaningful way by helping youth recognize that there are alternatives to violence and the challenges they confront.

“By bringing these living legends into the schools,” said Ms. Richardson, “we raise awareness about the achievements of the accomplished African Americans in local communities and
bring these leaders into schools to see things firsthand.”

Richardson is encouraging educators across the country to use multimedia resources such as The HistoryMakers’ digital archive to
enrich their students’ exposure to the contributions of African Americans in every community.

The HistoryMakers is a 501 (3) © non-profit dedicated to recording and preserving the personal histories of well-known and unsung African Americans.  To date, the organization has interviewed over 2,000 HistoryMakers, with the goal of creating an archive of 5,000 interviews (30,000 hours) for theestablishment of a one-of-a-kind digital archive, and priceless educationalresource.  For more information, visit The HistoryMakers website at www.thehistorymakers.com and The HistoryMakers digital archive at http://www.idvl.org/thehistorymakers.

For a brief introduction view the HistoryMakers video at Youtube.com.