Example Project
This project is part of an AudiAnnotate lesson plan that uses the audio recording “‘Criminal Syndicalism’ case, McComb, Mississippi,” from the Harry Ransom Center’s John Beecher Sound Recordings Collection. This project page exists as a sample project to facilitate understanding of what a collaborative classroom project could look like.
In this example, layer titles represent annotation categories. Annotation categories are groups of annotations that relate to particular characteristics of the audio recording. These categories are reflected in the layer title. For example, the layer with the layer tite “Environment_Kylie” includes annotations in the “Environment” category (described below). The use of an underscore keeps the layer titles sortable. Adding a name to the layer indicates who created the annotations.
Classrooom Suggestion: In the lesson, students will work collaboratively to select categories for annotation, and will each contribute annotations in their group work. In this example, we chose to annotate in the following categories:
- Environment: Environmental sounds, which could be any noise in the recording (e.g., cars horn, footsteps, noise from the recording device)
- External References: References to other events/people (e.g., rally, bombing)
- Speakers: Named and unnamed speakers
- Transcription: Selected sentences transcribed from the audio recording
- Topics: Thematic tags or phrases based on the conversations and events in the recording
Content Warning: In this recording, a racial slur is used at 16:06 by a student quoting the language said to them by a police officer while in jail. There is also explicit language used at 15:49, 16:30, and 16:39 by students quoting white police officers. Racial slurs are time-stamped below, in the layer titled “Content_Warning.”
Annotations by Kylie Warkentin and Bethany Radcliff
| Time | Annotation | Layer |
|---|---|---|
| 9:35 | Willie - one of the arrested students | External_References_Bethany |
| 8:30 | reference to the court case/date | External_References_Bethany |
| 16:10 | three police officers/jailers - Bagwell, Bates, Owen | External_References_Bethany |
| 16:06 - 16:07 | [Content Warning] Racial Slur | Content_Warning |
| 15:49 - 15:51 | [Content Warning] Explicit language | Content_Warning |
| 16:29 - 16:31 | [Content Warning] Explicit language | Content_Warning |
| 16:38 - 16:40 | [Content Warning] Explicit language | Content_Warning |
| 5:11 | people walking in? | Environment_Bethany |
| 5:19 | coughing | Environment_Bethany |
| 5:22 | chairs moving, scraping on floor | Environment_Bethany |
| 5:33 | chairs moving, scraping on floor | Environment_Bethany |
| 5:37 | people entering room? | Environment_Bethany |
| 8:59 | papers rustling | Environment_Bethany |
| 9:10 | microphone noises | Environment_Bethany |
| 5:53 | more people entering the room? | Environment_Bethany |
| 9:04 | walking around, movement | Environment_Bethany |
| 10:55 | tape restarted? | Environment_Bethany |
| 15:36 | children playing outside? | Environment_Bethany |
| 12:03 | door opens and closes | Environment_Bethany |
| 14:56 | tape paused and restarted? | Environment_Bethany |
| 14:57 | outdoor noises (birds?) | Environment_Bethany |
| 11:48 | mic noises and footsteps - microphone switch between speakers? | Environment_Bethany |
| 12:47 | mic noises - sounds like breathing (or wind?) | Environment_Bethany |
| 14:37 | laughter | Environment_Bethany |
| 15:06 | slapping sounds | Environment_Bethany |
| 15:35 | cat meowing? Or children playing? Or birds? | Environment_Bethany |
| 0:21 - 0:43 | "It's very uh -- it's very much important that you became a political prisoner and this is what you were in many ways. Not that we say you should have thrown a brick [unclear if you did]. I don't know whether you did or you didn't.Maybe some of you did. This we shouldn't have done because we need discipline. We have to have far more discipline than the white man if we're gonna win this uh struggle." | Transcription_Bethany |
| 1:00 - 1:22 | "Whether you threw a brick or didn't, the fact still remains that he used you as a tool, as an instrument. He made something of a thing of you. Because he was trying, by keeping you in jail, by setting a bond at 5/000 finally reducing it to 500, to strike fear in the hearts of your parents, and other people in the community." | Transcription_Bethany |
| 1:23 - 1:30 | "He was trying to cut off one segment of the Negroes in Mccomb from another segment" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 1:56 - 3:17 | "You were used. Some of you no doubt will be bitter about it. I know a lot of people were bitter the night that the [or our?] houses were bombed. Bitterness alone is not going to suffice. If you're angry, good. You have right to be angry. The question now is not whether you're angry or you dislike somebody, but whether or not you will take actions take steps to change the kind of city and county where people can be held in jail for things like this, where they can create a law to arrest any negro or any white person in the movement on just about any charge they want to and they you know, give it an nice sounding name. They say "syndicalism." Some of us [unclear] stumble over it [when we couldn't?] pronounce the word. But it still basically means that anyone who tries to work for justic in our socuety is doing something against the law. This is ironic, this is a mockery. You know. During the next few weeks, months, or years, everyone here, in Mississippi and in the south is going to be embroiled in a battle, and you're going to have to do something." | Transcription_Bethany |
| 2:46 | "They give it a nice sounding name-- they say 'syndicalism'" - the charge used to arrest the group of students | Transcription_Bethany |
| 3:43 - 3:49 | "You're going to have to be out canvasing, talking to people, doing something to bring about justice, unless you enjoyed being in jail" - this sounds threatening | Transcription_Bethany |
| 3:49 - 4:00 | If you didn't enjoy it then you must do something to change it and that's simply turn your back and say "it can't happen again" cause it can happen again and it might happen tomorrow. | Transcription_Bethany |
| 4:00 - 4:02 | unless you're ready to do something | Transcription_Bethany |
| 4:04 - 4:15 | plus you, your friends and your parents are ready to band together as a united people seeking to bring about a full good free society and world in which to live | Transcription_Bethany |
| 6:00 | "I was out in a day" - one of the white protestors arrested | Transcription_Bethany |
| 6:09 - 7:33 | "I thought...what you must be thinking about and how it must make you feel to know that, you know, a white civil rights worker can be picked up and out of jail in a day when you have to stay in jail and stay in jail and say in jail. And, it's not fair, it's.. I don't know what to say about it, except that that's why we're down here, and we're not gonna leave, until such a time arrives that, you know, people aren't treated that way." | Transcription_Bethany |
| 7:44 - 7:33 | woman in audience - "yes, lord" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 8:40 - 8:59 | "That sounds huh absolutely stupid to me, but we will check with our lawyer, to make absolutely certain. We will, you know, find out, cause we don't want them to pulling you back in on a technicality. They would try and do something as asinine as that, but uh, we want to check that out" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 9:50 - 9:51 | "They wouldn't even let my father give me not clothes or nothing" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 9:55 - 9:56 | "They wouldn't even let me talk to nobody" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 10:07 | "Louise Banks -- they wouldn't even let me talk to nobody, the whole 30 days" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 10:14 | "They let my uncle come one time and they told him to hurry up because they didn't have but a few seconds" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 9:35 - 9:37 | "It was a week before they let me even see WIllie" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 9:12 - 9:25 | "What were the conditions there, first in terms of the parents being able to get in and see the children? I know some were able, and some were not able to see their children." | Transcription_Bethany |
| 9:39 - 9:42 | "It's according to how they feel whether they let you see their parents or not" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 9:49 - 9:50 | "the white people could come in" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 10:07 - 10:13 | "Louise Banks. They wouldn't even let me talk to nobody. In the whole thirty days." | Transcription_Bethany |
| 10:15 - 10:23 | "They let my uncle come one time and told him to hurry up because they didn't have but a few seconds. And out of the thirty days they let me see nobody else" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 11:11 - 11:16 | "...some days they were mean to us. They cursed at us." | Transcription_Bethany |
| 12:54 - 12:59 | "they told us they were going to quit feeding us and quit letting our parents see us and quit letting them bring us anything" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 14:06 - 14:13 | " I would like to ask you about what recreation privileges did you have?" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 14:13 - 14:15 | "None" and "None at all" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 14:15 - 14:16 | "Were you able to get out of the cell at all?" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 14:19 | "[unclear ] play cards" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 14:34 | "How about the food that they gave you there?" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 14:36 - 14:44 | unanimous response that food was awful: "terrible," "it's cold," "cold beans," "cold pork and beans out of the can" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 14:45 - 14:46 | "potatoes mashed up with eggs" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 15:06 - 15:08 | "about two weeks ago, they stopped giving us coffee" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 15:11 - 15:12 | "What did you have for breakfast?" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 15:12 - 15:16 | "grits," "bread," "little old small pieces of bacon" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 15:22 - 15:25 | "How about your singing? Have they discouraged your singing in the cells?" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 15:26 - 15:28 | "They cursed us, so many times, every night" | Transcription_Bethany |
| 14:52 - 14:55 | "shhh" Barbara Beecher (?) shushes attendees (for better recording quality?) | Transcription_Bethany |
| 13:06 - 13:07 | "Wait, John. Wait. Let one talk" - Barbara Beecher (?) | Transcription_Bethany |
| 8:40 | inequality of court requirements | Topics_Bethany |
| 9:15 | conditions at prison | Topics_Bethany |
| 10:11 | lack of communication | Topics_Bethany |
| 10:21 | isolation | Topics_Bethany |
| 11:09 | police stealing from those imprisoned | Topics_Bethany |
| 11:53 | hygeine at prison | Topics_Bethany |
| 12:45 | police threatened students | Topics_Bethany |
| 13:15 | police threatened isolation | Topics_Bethany |
| 14:11 | lack of recreation privileges in prison | Topics_Bethany |
| 14:35 | inadequate food in prison | Topics_Bethany |
| 15:12 | breakfast in prison | Topics_Bethany |
| 15:24 | singing discouraged | Topics_Bethany |
| 9:25 - 0:09 | Mrs. Thomas | Speakers_Bethany |
| 9:54 | Louise Banks | Speakers_Bethany |
| 10:58 | Christine Anderson | Speakers_Bethany |
| 1:06 | Barbara Beecher (?) | Speakers_Bethany |
Example Project using "'Criminal Syndicalism' case, McComb, Mississippi" from the John Beecher Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at Harry Ransom Center.
IIIF manifest: https://bethanycayeradcliff.github.io/sensitive-audio-lesson/example-project-using-criminal-syndicalism-case-mccomb-mississippi-from-the-john-beecher-collection-at-the-harry-ransom-center/manifest.json