The Ashes of Waco

Communication

Shortly after the siege began, all communication between Mt. Carmel and the outside world was cut off. A direct line was installed between the building and FBI negotiators, but the besieged were denied contact with anyone else. Figuring reporters' cameras might be able to photograph signs (reporters were relegated to an area about two miles away from the building), the Branch Davidians painted messages on bed sheets and hung them out the window. Here are two examples:

Floor Plans

The collection holds many different floor plans of the Mt. Carmel center, ranging from blueprints to post-fire maps showing locations where evidence and the remains of the deceased were found (these were originally marked 'Confidential'). The plans shown here list the occupants and uses of each room in the complex.

Greetings!

I’m Kurt Johnson. I’ve been working with Joel on the Ashes of Waco material since the beginning of October. I’m extremely excited to be involved in this project. I’m a recent graduate of the School of Information at the University of Texas, and I’ve been interested for years in many topics related to this undertaking, from information organization to digital preservation, from the variety and history of religious belief to civil rights and questions of government power (and abuse thereof).

My first task here was to go through the archive, box by box, and enter folder details into a searchable database. This process allowed me to familiarize myself with the collection’s contents. It was also something of a journey of discovery: I had some previous knowledge of the events that occurred outside of Waco in 1993, and was aware of various controversies surrounding those events, but I was unprepared for the ocean of history, facts and myriad interpretations of those facts, evidence, legal and governmental documents, transcripts, first-hand accounts and private correspondence, official and underground rhetoric, newspaper reports, theories, conjectures, and more that awaited me.  It got pretty overwhelming at times, but the material is important and fascinating, tragic and at times outrageous, and gradually certain ideas began to take shape for me.

Recently, I began scanning representative documents and digitizing select videotapes in preparation for uploading to the internet. Our server space will not permit us to post everything we’d like to add, but we hope to be able to host a broad range of representative items. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or requests, please feel free to contact us.

Over the course of this endeavor, we will be posting sample material to the blog. Here is a photo from a large batch I recently digitized: 

The above photo was taken shortly after 12:10 pm on 4/19/93. The archive contains over 130 aerial photos from that day, starting before 11:15 am. These photos illustrate the gradual dismantling of Mt. Carmel over the course of the morning.  

Copyright

Although much if not most of the materials we plan to digitize and make available will be in the public domain, we do have copyright and privacy concerns for the primary materials in the collection. I'm thinking mainly of correspondence between Reavis and survivors of Mt. Carmel, which are unique and highly valuable for anyone interested in life at Mt. Carmel and the beliefs of the Branch Davidians there. 

The tricky part will be locating the individuals, most of whom have been released from prison (and in the case of two of them, deported to their home countries) but are still on parole. Part of the conditions of their parole is not being allowed to be in contact with one another, including those survivors who were acquitted! This perplexes me, but I digress. The point is, if I ask the acquitted person I want to ask for the parolee's contact information, he might be opening them (and/or himself) up to parole violations. I don't want to put him in that spot. 

Luckily I have recently gotten to know Matthew Wittmer. You can find out a little about him and his connection to the Branch Davidians via the first link listed on the left--"Memorializing Mount Carmel Center in Waco, Texas." He has not only provided me with tons of information on the subject and resources about it, he might be able to get me in touch with people who can provide me with contact information.

We got a letter of support from Dick Reavis to include with all our requests for permission. He also provided support for us during the grant application process. Having him behind it has been of vital importance. He stays in touch with some people, but not so much the survivors anymore. 

If we make a "good faith effort" to locate the survivors but can't, we might go ahead and digitize their materials and use the website to invite them to contact us. There's a chance word-of-mouth will bring them to us. Then they can provide their permission or deny it, in which case we'd take their materials down.

At a presentation I attended last week given by an ex-curator of a jazz collection at the University of Idaho, I saw an interesting feature of CONTENTdm that I didn't know existed: password-protected items. He had to enter a user name and password to access the sound and video clips on the site, due to copyright restrictions or concerns. It seems to me that since all of what he was playing was recorded and released before 1972, they would be now in public domain, but anyway, it's an option, perhaps, for getting around temporary privacy or copyright issues. 

It's also an option if we want to maintain total control over the content (i.e., prevent unauthorized downloads), regardless of its copyright status. That would allow us to still collect use and publication fees for those who want copies. I doubt I'll go that far, though. We don't want every person who just wants to listen or view something to have to contact us. Probably what I'll do see if we can make the exhibit items lower quality, so anyone who needs publishable/broadcast (or at least higher) quality will still have to come to us.

Announcing the grant project

Here is a link to the TSLAC press release announcing their FY 09 TexTreasures grants. We're listed under #3. This will give you an idea of how our project fits into the others that were awarded TexTreasures grant money. Out of 28 applicants from around the state, five were funded. We were one of four awarded full funding.

KWTX.com is one of the outlets that ran part of our press release announcing the grant project. This site includes links in the article to further information and reader comments at the bottom.

Here is our full press releaseDownload press_release_waco_exhibit_grant.doc.