The Thomas F. Freeman Collection

This home movie collection at the Texas Archive of the Moving Image was donated by Dr. Thomas F. Freeman- the legendary debate coach and professor at Texas Southern University, African-American community leader, and minister of Houston’s Mt. Horem Baptist Church. I performed descriptive cataloging and indexing of approximately 140 digitized films in the collection, conducting extensive research to identify locations, events, dates, and people present in the films. I also composed several accompanying write-ups of historical events and public figures portrayed in the home movies, such as Barbara Jordan’s honorary doctorate ceremony at TSU in 1975 and the Jackson 5 performing at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in 1974. After the films were cataloged, I curated the collection for its addition to the online library. In September of 2012, I visited Dr. Freeman in his offices at TSU to interview the professor and watch selected home movies from his collection with him. Based on the interview and my experience working with Freeman’s films, I wrote a  full-length feature to accompany The Thomas F. Freeman Collection at the time of its debut on the TAMI website.