By Jeanne Price
The Wiener-Rogers Law Library and UNLV’s Office of Diversity Initiatives have been awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities to host a series of film showings and discussions focusing on the civil rights movement in the United States. Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The NEH grant provides funds to communities across the country to support film showings and programming on the history of civil rights in the United States.
The Law Library and Office of Diversity Initiatives will incorporate the film series in existing programs and develop new programming to highlight the issues described in the four featured films – The Abolitionists; Slavery by Another Name; The Loving Story; and Freedom Riders. Over a three year period beginning in September 2013, UNLV scholars and community leaders will participate in forums – including the Diversity Leadership Forum and Latino Youth Leadership Conference – in which the films will play an important role.
The film series complements the Law Library’s collection of documentary films, one of the largest collections of its kind among academic law libraries. We hope that the initiatives and programming that the grant supports will not only inform and encourage dialogue, but also inspire students and other scholars to undertake research in primary source material in the Law Library’s collection, research that might enhance our understanding of the minority experience in Southern Nevada. The Law Library’s collections include the archives of the Las Vegas Chapter of the National Bar Association, the oldest minority bar association of African-American attorneys.
