THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Special Project

Special Project
From the 9th Annual Shorty Awards

#ReadingforROOTS

Finalist in Multicultural Community Engagement

Objectives

We were asked to promote HISTORY's reimagining of the landmark miniseries ROOTS. To honor this groundbreaking story, we decided to create a campaign that would actually reconnect modern African American families with their lost ancestors.

Strategy and Execution

We partnered with the Freedman's Bureau Project to launch Reading for ROOTS, a multi-platform campaign that called upon the public to help transcribe thousands of aging Civil-War era documents, thereby saving the names and histories of enslaved people from disappearing forever.

As participants found names, dates, and other information in these hand-written records, they were digitized and entered into a searchable database.

Results

In just three weeks, our campaign helped the Freedman's Bureau Project reach 100% of its goal by transcribing over 14,000 names. Those names give a potential 22 million Americans of African descent a chance to trace their roots.

Media

Video for #ReadingforROOTS

Entrant Company / Organization Name

360i, The Freedmen's Bureau Project, Family Search, Smithsonian Museum, A&E - HISTORY

Link

Entry Credits