Miami Presents: “Keeping Freedom Summer Alive”
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Please join us for a conversation with Miami University Archivist Jacky Johnson and Ian Polumbaum, Assistant District Attorney & son of Freedom Summer photographer Ted Polumbaum, as they discuss the responsibility of portraying historical events through various lenses. They will share perspectives on the ethical and practical dimensions of archival work in today’s digital age when working with six-decade-old analog documents used in recording, preserving, and presenting truth through first-person narrative.
This presentation, moderated by Jason Shaiman, Curator of Exhibitions, is in association with the featured exhibition, Through Their Lens: Photographing Freedom Summer, on display at the Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum now through December 16, 2024.
Jacqueline (Jacky) Johnson is the University Archivist and Principal Librarian at Miami University Libraries. Her research focuses on the history of Western College for Women, Oxford College for Women, and the Mississippi Summer Project. Johnson is the author of Finding Freedom: Memorializing the Voices of Freedom Summer (Miami University Press) and Western History (Arcadia Press). Her latest book chapter, “Citizenship, Social Justice, and Arts-based Dialogue through the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964” will appear in the monograph Engaging Youth Civic Participation: Critical Approaches to Teaching Digital Media in Art Classrooms and Communities (2022).
Ian Polumbaum was seven months old in June 1964 when his father, Ted Polumbaum, went to Oxford to photograph the Freedom Summer volunteer training for Time magazine and then followed the group to Mississippi. Ian grew up immersed in words and images that conveyed the horrors and hopes of the time. He followed his father into journalism, as managing editor of the UMass-Amherst newspaper and then as a reporter in New Jersey and Vermont before going to law school. Since 1998 Ian has worked as an assistant district attorney in Boston prosecuting homicides, domestic and sexual violence, and crimes by police officers.
The event is open and free to attend, but registration is required. Questions? Please reach out to Mollie Young at youngmr@miamioh.edu.
The views expressed by presenters are their own and their appearance in a program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Miami University Alumni Association.