Derby, Doris Adelaide, 1939-2002

Doris Adelaide Derby (November 11, 1939 – March 28, 2022) was an American activist, documentary photographer, and director of Georgia State University's Office of African-American Student Services and Programs and adjunct associate professor of anthropology. She was active in the Mississippi civil rights movement, and her work discusses the themes of race and African-American identity. She was a working member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), as well as co-founder of the Free Southern Theater, and the founding director of the Office of African-American Student Services and Programs. Her photography has been exhibited internationally. Two of her photographs were published in Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC, to which she also contributed an essay about her experiences in the Mississippi civil rights movement.[2] Born on November 11, 1939,[3] Derby was raised in Williamsbridge, the outskirts of the Bronx Her grandmother, Edith Delaney Johnson, had started a chapter of the NAACP in Maine in the 1920s Derby's association with the civil rights movement began when she joined the NAACP Youth Chapter in her hometown of New York City at her church at the age of 16.[5][6] She continued her association with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while attending Hunter College in New York.[7] At the college, she was a member of the Christian Human Relations Group where they discussed topics such as segregation, sit-ins, and the Freedom Riders.[6] As a student activist, she was on the front lines of the civil rights movement. Derby worked primarily with SNCC in New York, Albany, Georgia, and throughout the state of Mississippi. In 1963, before the March on Washington, Derby, an elementary school teacher at the time, was recruited to work in an adult literacy program initiated by the SNCC at Tougaloo College located in Mississippi. From 1963 to 1972 Derby served as a SNCC field secretary in various capacities in Jackson, Mississippi, in the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), the Poor Peoples' Corporation (PPC), and the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) Head start Program. During this period she worked on preparations for the Freedom Summer, taught in various educational enrichment programs, and promoted local arts and culture. Derby left Mississippi in 1972 and focused on African and African-American studies, for which she earned an M.A., as well as a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.[6] In 1990, she joined the University System of Georgia at Georgia State University (G.S.U.) as an adjunct associate professor of anthropology and the founding director of the Office of African-American Student Services and Programs (O.A.A.S.S.P.).

Doris Adelaide Derby (1939-2014) was an African American civil rights activist, photographer, and educator. Derby spent her early life in New York City and attended Hunter College. She became involved in the civil rights movement in the early 1960s and joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1963, Derby moved to Mississippi to teach in an adult literacy program run by SNCC at Tougaloo College in Jackson. At Tougaloo College she co-founded the Free Southern Theater, a community theater group that traveled throughout the state. Derby remained in Mississippi until 1972 and worked with many organizations devoted to improving the economic and social conditions of African Americans in the South, including the Poor People's Corporation and the Child Development Group of Mississippi. In 1967 Derby joined Southern Media, Incorporated, a documentary photography and filmmaking group in Jackson, Mississippi. Derby used photography to document Black life in Mississippi and the work of civil rights organizations.

Derby received a Master's Degree (1975) and Ph.D. (1980) from the University of Illinois in anthropology, with a concentration in African and African American Studies. She taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1990, Derby became a adjunct associate professor of anthropology at Georgia State University (Atlanta, Georgia) and founding director of the Office of African-American Student Services and Programs (OAASSP). Derby married actor Robert Banks in 1995.

Derby's photographs have been exhibited throughout the United States. She has also published two books, Poetagraphy: Artistic Reflections of a Mississippi Lifeline in Words and Images, 1963-1972 (2019) and A Civil Rights Journey (2021).