CSU Geographers Looking for Liberia Migration Stories

September 20, 2019

Columbus State community geographers are looking for stories. Are you related to the over 100 families who migrated from the lower Chattahoochee Valley to the West African nation of Liberia between 1850 and 1900? Or do you know someone who is related? If you aren’t sure you can review a detailed list of known emigrants at the following link: https://aziliafilms.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/chattahoochee-valley-emigrants-to-liberia-1853-1890.pdf.

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Please join us and share family stories with us so we can better understand our region’s long-lived relationship with Liberia, and connect our contemporary communities. Any objects that can be scanned will be most welcome. Your documents and stories will be shared with the community through a digital humanities project published at Columbus State University’s archives in early 2020. These materials might also be used in a future public television documentary.

Community geographers will be hosting two Liberia Migration Project History Harvests at the following dates and times: Saturday, September 28th: 10 am to 2 p.m. at the Mildred Terry Public Library on 640 Veterans Parkway, Columbus, GA 31901, and 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Eufaula Community Center on 530 Lake Drive, Eufaula, AL 36027

Dr. Amanda Rees, Professor of Geography at Columbus State University and her students will host the two history harvests along with the historian and creative director at Azilia Films, Matt McDaniel who is making a documentary of this region’s remarkable history.

For more information about the Liberia Migration Project History Harvest contact Professor Amanda Rees via email arees@columbusstate.edu or call 507 3458. For more information about the project in general or migrant family names, head to the website at https://liberiamigrationproject.com/

If you aren’t sure you can review a detailed list of known emigrants at the following link: https://aziliafilms.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/chattahoochee-valley-emigrants-to-liberia-1853-1890.pdf.

File not available. Please make sure the path ( https://news.columbusstate.eduhttps://news.columbusstate.edu/_resources/php/non-html-file-link-accessibility/non-html-file-link-accessibility.php?path=https://aziliafilms.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/chattahoochee-valley-emigrants-to-liberia-1853-1890.pdf&ftd=PDF ) is correct and the file is published.

Azilia Films is a Columbus, Georgia-based educational and documentary film company that focuses on global connections and cultures. Liberia: An American-African Legacy, which will highlight the historic and present-day connections between the Chattahoochee Valley and Africa’s first republic, is the company’s first film project. Azilia Films sifts culture’s gray areas, studies its forgotten bookshelves, and searches the globe for compelling stories that confirm and illustrate humanity’s shared past and present in all its vast complexity and richness. Storytelling produces thought-provoking educational films using creative minds, engaging artistic approaches, and state-of-the-art technology. To find out more information about the Liberia public television documentary, contact Matt McDaniel at mmcdaniel@aziliafilms.com.