Georgia's World War II Veterans and the Civil Rights Movement

This project is funded through the Veterans Legacy Grant Program. It will be completed by faculty and staff in the Center for the Advancement of Military and Emergency Services Research and supervised by Dr. Kristin Horan (Psychology) and Dr. Chris Hess (Sociology). The goal of this project is to document the stories of World War II veterans who are buried in one of several Georgia military cemeteries and who participated in the Civil Rights Movement in some way.

This project will involve three distinct activities focused on memorializing veterans of the armed forces who served their country meritoriously while abroad and at home. First, students will collect narrative life history interviews from family members of World War II Veterans who participated in the Civil Rights Movement interred in three memorial veteran cemeteries in Georgia. Second, students will assist in the collection and analysis of historical demography data from the 1950 U.S. Census to visualize associated demographic, housing, and occupational trends. Finally, students will curate this narrative and pair oral history evidence with other archival for an installation in a university-based Museum of History and Holocaust Education. 

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Psychological Sciences, Sociology & Criminal Justice

• Good interpersonal and verbal communication skills (e.g., in order to conduct interviews) 
• Dependability and good attention to detail (e.g., to collect and analyze census and ancestry data)
• Good written communication skills and proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite (e.g., to transcribe interviews and write manuscripts)
• If possible, familiarity with statistics and a software platform for data analysis would be valuable (e.g., SPSS, Excel, R/Python)

August 8, 2024 - July 31, 2025

Dr. Kristin Horan - khoran1@kennesaw.edu

Dr. Chris Hess