Center for Southern Folklore Support the Center!

"The Center’s films, photographs, interviews, exhibits, folk art, and championing of individuals and the community represent an invaluable resource too rare to call priceless (it would be an insult to the diversity and purity of its subjects) but requiring the kind of archival attention that will allow them to be preserved."

- Peter Guralnick

For nearly 40 years our filmmakers, folklorists and historians have interviewed, recorded, photographed and filmed men and women whose stories, music, foods and crafts represent the diverse traditions and communities of the Memphis/Delta region.

In their current form these tape recorded personal narratives and music will not last. With your help the very fragile materials that are stored in the Center's Archives -- 1500 analog audio recordings, 300,000 images, and several hundred hours of film footage and video can be preserved on digital files and be available for generations to come.

Your donation will support the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival. It will also support the preservation of the work the Center has done over the years.

"This needs to happen. The Center has years of field recordings - unique and irreplaceable, with no safeties. Analog recordings do not last forever. This body of work must be digitized and preserved for all time. The value of the material cannot be over-estimated.

- Jim Dickinson

1941 - 2009