Voices Across Time: Building Character and Community in Carroll and Haralson Counties
Center for Public History, University of West Georgia

The Georgia Humanities Council funded Voices Across Time: Building Character and Community in Carroll and Haralson Counties project launched a pioneering partnership between the Center for Public History, professors and students from UWG, officers of the Departments of Juvenile Justice in Carroll, Haralson, and Polk Counties, the Haralson Family Connections Coalition and two local veterans groups, VFW Post 7404 and the Haralson County Veterans Association. These groups came together to intervene in the lives of youth offenders through involving them in an oral history project dedicated to preserving the stories of local veterans.

In two six week projects, one each in the fall of 2003 and the spring of 2004, nine young people researched and interviewed several local veterans, and based on that experience wrote biographies and created exhibit panels illustrating what they learned. Over half of the youth group was released early from probation; parents and probation officers reporting that a dramatic transformation followed the youths’ participation in the VAT project. The probation officers also noted that even in the youth who re-offended or had other difficulties, a positive change had occurred in self-perception.

For more information on the Voices Across Time project or the Veterans History Project, please contact project director Dr. Rebecca Bailey by phone at 678-839-6141 or at the address below.

Center for Public History, History Department, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 30118

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