Let My People Go

Preston Ewing Jr. is an education consultant with the National Center for the Educational Rights of Children. He has won an ACLU Award, an NAACP Outstanding Service Award, an Illinois Education Association Outstanding Human Relations Award, an Illinois Attorney General’s Service to the Disabled Award, a Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation Long and Continuous Service to Low Income Peoples Award, and a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Service Award.Jan Peterson Roddy is an associate professor in the Department of Cinema and Photography at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, where she teaches the production, history, and critical analysis of photography. She continues to collaborate with community groups and individuals regionally to create photographic archives and publications that chronicle the lives of historically marginalized peoples.

"The six individuals whose remembrances are included as narrative text are representatives of a diverse black community. My hope is that the truths that echo in these stories and pictures exemplify as much as is possible, the commitment, sacrifices, and pride of the larger black community of Cairo who came together against all odds."—Jan Peterson Roddy, from the Editor’s Preface