Doris Derby

American photographer (1939–2022)

Doris Adelaide Derby (November 11, 1939 – March 28, 2022) was an American activist and documentary photographer. She was the adjunct associate professor of anthropology at Georgia State University and the founding director of their Office of African American Student Services and Programs. 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) and co founder of the Free Southern Theater. 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.

Doris Derby's parents met in New York and married in the mid 1930s. Born on November 11, 1939,

She began to formally study dance while in elementary school and gravitated towards African centered dance traditions. Derby received a scholarship to study at the Katherine Dunham African dance classes at the Harlem YMCA. 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. who contributed in developing literacy materials to help prepare black people to pass the required, yet discriminatory literacy test for voter eligibility in Mississippi. As a SNCC organizer in Jackson, Mississippi, Derby felt compelled to work in the South as she saw a need for change through her life experiences. Her experience moving to the South as a native northerner sparked and ignited her. A war on the home front had been started. For this reason, people from all walks of life, backgrounds and ethnic groups were called to work together for a greater cause. Many individuals participated and were committed to the movement, however, black people were most impacted by the injustice of the South and took this time to really take a stance. Derby felt that a repertory theater company could travel throughout the state and incorporate all of the arts through the development of a cultural format. Creating a space for interaction with the people in the movement and the grassroots community who had suffered the most. The theater would be a vehicle that could be used to inform and perhaps reveal new creative strategies to deal with the institution of segregation. "We needed to look into ourselves in order to empower ourselves and reclaim the freedom we did not have in Mississippi and other southern states." Derby was also involved in the marketing, public relations, and training of these groups. In 1967 she joined Southern Media, Inc., a documentary, photography, an filmmaking group in Jackson, Mississippi, that traveled throughout the state documenting the lives, struggles, initiatives and gains of people in and around the movement.

Derby lived in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, actor Bob Banks, whom she married in 1995. They were active leaders in their community and members of local and national organizations. She died on March 28, 2022, in Atlanta from cancer at the age of 82. She was also interviewed on WSB TV, Channel 2 Atlanta, for a segment shown on the anniversary, as well as a commemorative special program that was aired the day before. In addition, Derby was featured in a documentary film about past and current March on Washington participants. This film was sponsored by the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, with the interview being conducted by Atlanta based film interns. In April 2010, Derby and other SNCC members gathered to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of SNCC. Derby is one of the 52 contributors to the book Hands on the Freedom Plow Personal Accounts of 52 Women in SNCC. On October 6, 2011, Derby received the 26th Governor's Award in the Humanities in Atlanta for documenting and preserving images and stories enabling current and future generations to learn about the civil rights movement and social change in the Deep South.