Todd Christensen, who graduated from Geneseo in 2015 with a
history major, is working on the SNCC Digital Gateway (SDG), a collaborative
project involving the SNCC Legacy Project, Duke University, and Civil Rights
Movement scholars. At Geneseo, Todd completed a history honors thesis on Freedom
Schools in the Civil Rights Movement, with support from a Geneseo Summer
Fellowship. He also worked as an intern with the Algebra Project in Boston,
with support from a Ambassador fellowship and as an intern on One Person, OneVote, a pilot project and predecessor to the SDG, which was launched in March
2015. At the time, Christensen reflected, “The work on OPOV has given me a new
sense of what history really is. The website tells the story of black voting
rights through the lens of the ordinary black people in the Deep South during
the early 60s, who put their lives on the line to fight for first-class
citizenship. These people, who are
almost always missing in history textbooks, both in high school and college,
served as the backbone of grassroots movements for black political power. And having the chance to work with Duke and
the SNCC legacy Project in being able to tell their stories has taught me a lot
about the power of regular people doing extraordinary things.”
