James County Historical Society is announcing their winter meeting. It will be held February 2nd, 2014 at 2:30 pm at the Ooltewah United Methodist Church in Ooltewah.

We have a great speaker. His name is Bob George from the Bradley County Historical Society. He will be speaking on the history of Cleveland and its Revolutionary Heroes.Their most important hero was Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, a commander at the Battle of Kings Mountain during the American Revolution.

I must admit that I don't know anything about this. I am looking forward to what he has to say. I just love History! Hope to see you there!

CAHA Annual Meeting

The Chattanooga Area Historical Association is announcing their annual meeting and lunch on February 1, 2014 at 11:30 am. The meeting will held at the Chattanooga Choo Choo in the Centennial Ballroom. The cost is $26.00. Please contact the CAHA for attendance qualifications.

The speaker will be Dr. Ned Irwin, Archivist for Washington County, Tennessee. He will be speaking on "Bottling Gold: Chattanooga's Coca Cola Fortunes". Coca Cola put Chattanooga on the map as the first place the drink was bottled and sold. Before that time, it was only available in soda fountains primarily in the Atlanta region.

Created Equal: America's Civil Rights Struggle

To celebrate Black History Month, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Martin Luther King, the Chattanooga Public Library is pleased to host a film discussion series on civil rights.  The Create Equal series uses the power of documentary films to encourage community discussion of America's civil rights history. The series consists of four documentaries, The Abolitionists, Slavery by Another Name, The Loving Story, and Freedom Riders, that chronicle the civil rights struggle from Revolutionary times to Martin Luther King. 

The first event is The Abolitionists (February 4: Library Auditorium. 6-7:30pm) -  Vincent Phipps, storyteller and motivational speaker, will begin with a dramatic reading of the  Emancipation Proclamation. The Abolitionists' release in 2013 marked the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The film's ​protoganists William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Angelina Grimke, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Brown fought to end slavery through newspapers and broadsides, literature and religion, and finally political action and violence. The scholar for the session will be Raymond Evans, author of Chattanooga: Tennessee's Gateway to the Underground Railroad and Historic African American Places in the Chattanooga Area.​ The Library will present clips from the film followed by discussion. 

More about the Create Equal Series at the Library:
The Chattanooga Public Library is honored to present these four documentaries with riveting new footage illustrating the history of civil rights movement in America.  It is one of 473 institutions that will bring these films into the communities they serve, hoping to help bridge racial and cultural divides in America civic life.  These films tell the stories of men and women who challenged the social and legal status quo of deeply rooted institutions, from slavery to segregation. 

Created Equal: America's Civil Rights Struggle is made possible through a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of its Bridging Cultures initiative, in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. 

Program note: All of the films, with the exception of The Loving Story, will be shown at the downtown library auditorium. Our community partners at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center will present The Loving Story at the BCCC on February 18. In addition to the film series the library will present a genealogy workshop as part of Black History Month​, From Africa to America: Tracing Your Roots, on Saturday, February 15. 

Dates, Times, and Places

Abolitionists: February 4, 6-7:30pm Library auditorium

Slavery by Another Name: February 13, 6-7:30pm Library auditorium

From Africa To America: Tracing Your Roots: February 15, 10am-12 Library auditorium

The Loving Story: February 18 6:30-8pm Bessie Smith Cultural Center

Freedom Riders: February 25, 6-7:30pm Library auditorium