SOUTHEASTERN, ARTS, MEDIA & EDUCATION PROJECT (ATLANTA, GA.)
Southeastern Arts, Media & Education Project (Atlanta, Ga.) records, 1984-1996

Restrictions on Access

Special restrictions apply: Use copies have not been made for audiovisual material in this collection. Researchers must contact the Rose Library at least two weeks in advance for access to these items. Collection restrictions, copyright limitations, or technical complications may hinder the Rose Library's ability to provide access to audiovisual material.

Access to processed born digital materials is only available in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (the Rose Library). Use of the original digital media is restricted.

Terms Governing Use and Reproduction

All requests subject to limitations noted in departmental policies on reproduction.

Related Materials in Other Repositories

Southeastern Arts, Media & Education (SAME) Project records, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives

Related Collections in this Repository

Rebecca Ranson papers; Southeastern Arts, Media & Education project (Atlanta, Ga.) collection

Source

Gift, 2005.

Citation

[after identification of item(s)], Southeastern Arts, Media & Education Project (Atlanta, Ga.) records, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.

Processing

Processed by Sarah Quigley, Ingrid Meintjes, and Allison Pilatsky, 2014.

Born digital materials processed, arranged, and described by Brenna Edwards, 2020. Born digital materials include files taken from 24 3.5" floppy disks. For information as to how these materials were processed, see the processing note in the description of series 3, Born digital material.

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Historical Note

The Southeastern Arts, Media and Education Project was founded in 1984 with a mission to provide education and artistic expression during the AIDS crisis. Activist and artist Rebecca Ranson led SAME for its twelve years of operation, having committed herself to lesbian and gay issues after a close friend was diagnosed with AIDS in 1983. The organization sponsored plays, the Out on Film festival, Amethyst (a literary magazine), the Arts for Pride festival, and other events. The Out On Film festival, first produced in 1993, was the culmination of years of earlier gay and lesbian film festivals hosted by SAME. The newspaper, Southern Voice, was a part of the organization for its first two years before being launched as an independent publication. Ranson wrote and directed many of the plays produced by SAME.

In the 1990s, SAME participated in the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games Cultural Olympiad, produced a youth issue of the magazine Amethyst, and continued to sponsor a wide array of cultural activities. In 1994, SAME faced a significant setback after discovering that employee and long-time gay activist Jeffrey Laymon had defrauded the organization of several thousand dollars. The same year, the organization suffered another financial setback when the annual film festival garnered insufficient attendance. SAME ultimately went out of business in 1996.

Scope and Content Note

The collection consists of the records of the Southeastern Arts, Media and Education Project in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1984-1996 and includes administrative records, audiovisual material, and born digital material. Administrative records contain financial records, meeting minutes, internal communications and mailings, membership records, the records of the gay and lesbian journal Amethyst, production files for plays produced by the organization, and event files. There is also a small amount of audio-visual material and photographs. Amethyst files document the production and publication of the journal and contain article and literary submissions, author correspondence, and distributor information. Play production files contain scripts, promotional material, correspondence, photographs, and planning records. These files document the performance of Rebecca Ranson’s For Love and For Life, Terrence McNally’s The Lisbon Traviata, and Robert Chesley’s Jerker, among many others. Event files include planning documents relating to the Arts for Pride festival, the Out On Film festival, and prior iterations of Atlanta’s gay and lesbian film festival.

Audiovisual material contains sound and video recordings that document some of SAME's events. Video recordings contain interviews with members of Atlanta’s lesbian and gay community, a 1984 Human Rights Campaign fundraising drive, and Southern Voice newspaper’s Potluck Dinner from Hell. Sound recordings include readings of poetry by Sharon Sanders, Franklin Abbott, and Susan Ottzen at the Atlanta arts center Callanwolde, an Atlanta Flute Ensemble recital, and a recorded conversation with unidentified community members. Born digital material in this collection consists of Amethyst records, correspondence, and Out On Film files.

Arrangement Note

Organized into three series: (1) Administrative records, (2) Audiovisual material, and (3) Born digital material.