Fitzgerald, GA, December 2-3, 2023
The Community Archiving Workshop partnered with the directors of the documentary Somebody’s Gone to engage with and work to help preserve personal moving image collections that capture Black history in South Georgia. Somebody’s Gone tells the story of Brother Theotis Taylor—his music and his community—as told by his son Hubert, in partnership with filmmaker Cyrus Moussavi. The project is a multi-vocal, multi-layered, and multi-generational story of Black life in Fitzgerald, a former sundown town established as a retirement community for Rebel and Union soldiers. Through a community’s memories and personal archives, SOMEBODY’S GONE celebrates the radical act of documenting your story in a place intent on erasing it.
CAW members spent two days in Fitzgerald staffing the “Pictures of You” Home Movie Festival- organizing and inventorying collections brought in by community members, playing back and digitizing recordings, and scanning family photographs in partnership with members of the University of Georgia.