Creator of the Month… Guion Griffis Johnson

[Each month we feature a “creator” or one of the SHC’s manuscript collections. In archival terms, a creator is defined as an individual, group, or organization that is responsible for a collection’s production, accumulation, or formation.]

Guion Griffis Johnson of Chapel Hill, N.C., was a professor, author, scholar, journalist, women’s advocate, and general civic leader. Johnson held a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina. She published three books: A Social History of the Sea Islands (1930), Antebellum North Carolina (1937), and Volunteers in Community Service (1967). Her husband was Guy Johnson, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the 1920s and 1930s, Johnson and her husband worked together at the Institute for Research in Social Science at University of North Carolina. Continue reading “Creator of the Month… Guion Griffis Johnson”

National Park Service opens Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site

This past Friday, October 10, 2008, the National Park Service held a dedication and a grand opening ceremony to officially open the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama.

“The Tuskegee Airmen” was the popular name of a group of black pilots who flew with distinction during World War II as the 332nd Fighter Group of the US Army Air Corps. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States.

The museum, housed within a converted airplane hangar at Moton Field where the Airmen once trained, is a long overdo permanent tribute to the heroic group of airmen who flew more than 15,000 combat trips throughout Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa during World War II – all while fighting discrimination on the homefront in the Jim Crow South.

A full news release from the National Parks Service is available here:
http://www.nps.gov/tuai/parknews/national-park-service-opens-tuskegee-airmen-historic-site.htm