Northern Virginia Foundation to Donate Historical African-American Films to Alabama College

Submitted by Dr. Lewis R. Brown

The Northern Virginia-Brown Foundation is set to donate several African-American historical artifacts to Alabama A&M University through a new partnership between the two entities. 

The Brown Foundation, which has offices in Stafford County and Nokesville in Prince William County, will begin donating the artifacts to the J.F. Drake Memorial Learning Resources and Media Center at Alabama A&M in Normal on Sept. 16. 

Veronica Henderson, head of archives and special collections at the J.F. Drake Memorial Learning Resources and Media Center, said she expects this partnership to be a long-lasting one that will be mutually beneficially to all parties involved.  

The Brown Foundation will donate 100 civil rights magazines and more than 500 African-American films made between 1900 and 1981 to the library. The donations will be used as attractions and informative material to develop the library's African-American History and Literature Sections. 

The films were transferred from 28mm, 70 mm and 12 mm film reels to DVD format to make everything more compatible with today's technology. 

The Brown Foundation also donated jazz, bee bop, swing, gospel, blues, and early rock-and-roll music from original 78 LPs (Long-Playing Phonograph records) and some from 45 inch records to Compact Disc format. Some of the recording artists are: Big Maybell, Blind Mellow-Jelly and Charlie Jackson, Jellyroll Morton, Louis Armstrong, The Davis Sisters. 

Henderson said Dr. Lewis R. Brown, the CEO and founder of the Brown Foundation, has made it possible for Alabama A&M University to digitalize all the DVDs and music CDs with the donation of a DVD-Blu-Ray Digital Converter. 

This machine is able to digitalize old film reels, Beta tapes, VHS, DVDs and as Blu-Ray discs.  With this donation, the center will be leading the way to increasing the use of technology in Normal for students and the public. 

Henderson also mentioned that Lewis Brown and Shamira Brown, also of the Brown Foundation will serve the center and the university as a whole by lending their experiences of writing and researching grants in various areas. 

 Henderson said she spoke with Lewis Brown and he is very interested in starting an Environmental Justice Curriculum at Alabama A&M University and writing several grants that will deal with Environmental Justice and Toxicology for students and faculty. 

 Moreover, Dr. Lewis stated that he is looking forward to being a positive influence in the Normal community and working with the students and staff in the sciences, particularly in biology and chemistry, as the dream of starting up an Environmental Science/Environmental Toxicology track with detailed research becomes a full reality.