Sounder

About the Project

Lonne Elder III was an actor, playwright, and screenwriter who wrote the screenplay for the 1972 film “Sounder,” adapted from William H. Armstrong’s novel of the same name. The film, starring Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, and Kevin Hooks, centers on an African American sharecropping family during the Great Depression and the difficulties they face after the father is arrested for stealing food as his family was starving. For this work, Elder received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Help us transcribe this Academy Award-nominated screenplay.

Lonne Elder III (1927–1996) was an actor, playwright, and screenwriter. Elder was born in Georgia and grew up impoverished during the Great Depression. He was orphaned at a young age and moved to New Jersey to live with relatives. In 1952, Elder was drafted into the army and was stationed near Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. There he met the poet and playwright Robert Hayden who inspired him to write. Elder moved back to New York in 1953, immersed himself in Harlem’s literary scene, and began to study acting. Elder’s first role was in the renowned Broadway play, “A Raisin in the Sun.” He was the head playwright of the Negro Ensemble Company’s playwrights’ division from 1967 until 1969, when his play “Ceremonies in Dark Old Men” was selected for production. In 1971, Elder shifted to writing television and films, including the Academy Award nominated “Souder.” By the 1980s, Elder became disillusioned with Hollywood due to the lack of movement in changing the way African Americans were portrayed in Hollywood films.

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Completed!

Project Progress (details)

202 pages completed

Difficulty

1 out of 5

(details)

About Project Difficulty

Level 1 - BEGINNER

Content: all typed
Language: English
Format: letters, diaries, flyers, pamphlets, and one-page documents
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Level 2

Content: mostly typed, handwritten in print, or otherwise very clearly written/readable
Language: English
Format: memorabilia, advertisements, image captions, telegrams, diaries, letters, notes
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Level 3 - INTERMEDIATE

Content: typed and handwritten materials in cursive or print
Language: English
Format: newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, letters/diaries/notes that may include annotations or margin notes
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: experience reading cursive writing may be useful

Level 4

Content: handwritten materials, primarily in cursive or somewhat difficult to read (predominantly from the 19th and 20th centuries) , audio recordings that are relatively easy to hear/decipher, and scientific materials
Language: English and/or other languages that use Roman script but may require the use of diacritics (French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc.)
Format: audio recordings, letters, diaries, notes and other written materials, projects with templated fields and special instructions
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: some knowledge of non-English Roman-character/script languages and diacritics may be useful, as well as experience reading cursive handwriting. A general knowledge or familiarity with scientific terminology.

Level 5 - ADVANCED

Content: handwritten materials in cursive (from the 19th century or earlier) or in a non-Roman script language, audio recordings that are difficult to hear or are not in English, specialty materials/projects such as numismatics projects and the Project Phaedra notebooks
Language: foreign languages that use non-Roman characters (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Greek/Cyrillic, Native American and Indigenous languages, etc.) and English
Format: audio recordings, columned data/tables, manuscripts, letters, diaries, notes, currency sheets, coins
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: knowledge of a specific language and access to a keyboard with the characters in that language may be required for certain projects. Experience reading cursive handwriting and familiarity with 19th century (or prior) handwriting and conventions/abbreviations may be useful, as well as knowledge of scientific terminology, astrophysics data, or linguistics.

Contributing
members

202

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pages