FREE & EQUAL IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR IPHONE & android!
Brought to you by Walking Cinema
VIEW THE TRAILER
Free & Equal (F&E) is an audio and augmented reality journey exploring a key moment in the history of Civil Rights. Using GPS, this Walking Cinema app guides you from site-to-site through the National Reconstruction Era Historical Park in Beaufort, South Carolina.
“The Project that brings visitors into the space during the Reconstruction period: the sounds, the voice, the fears and the hopes of the enslaved. It allows us to see them, not just see them but see their importance, and their continued importance.”
— Eric Crawford, Director of the Charles W. Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies at Coastal Carolina University
Step into the first Civil RightS movement in America...
The Port Royal Experiment.
Free & Equal (F&E) is an audio and augmented reality journey exploring a key moment in the history of Civil Rights.
Using GPS, this Walking Cinema app guides you from site-to-site through the National Reconstruction Era Historical Park in Beaufort, South Carolina. This area was home to the Port Royal Experiment, in which 8000 formerly enslaved people were armed, funded, trained, and empowered to build their own society 3 years before the end of the Civil War.
This story reveals a small, often-forgotten moment in American history in which recently-freed-people owned their former plantations, literacy was spreading like wildfire, the Freedman’s bank was open to all, formerly enslaved people were elected to US Congress, and military power was firmly in the hands of African Americans.
The story is best heard walking and driving through Beaufort, SC, where you will find clues and hidden artifacts in this incredible story. But if you can’t make the trip, the app can be listened to as a highly-engaging podcast that comes to life in your living room via Augmented Reality.
In the Press
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New Beaufort tour app “Free & Equal” highlights personal stories of Reconstruction Era
The “Free & Equal” launch event was a partnership between the University of South Carolina Beaufort’s Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era and San Francisco-based media company Walking Cinema, which produced the app. The National Endowment for the Humanities funded the project.
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New app makes Beaufort history come alive
A launch party Thursday, June 17 in Naval Heritage Park will celebrate the release of a new interactive app called “Free & Equal,” which makes Beaufort’s past come alive in a walking and driving tour that uncovers personal stories at historic sites. The audio and augmented reality tour lets locals and visitors experience the Lowcountry’s Reconstruction Era history through the perspective of formerly enslaved people.
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Grant to change how visitors experience SC’s Reconstruction history
A new collaborative project that aims to change how visitors experience Reconstruction-era history in the South Carolina Lowcountry is kicking into gear, thanks to a recently announced grant. A federal agency that gives grants to cultural institutions across the U.S., awarded $280,000 to this ground-breaking historical project. The app employs personal narrative, historical background, music, poetry and Augmented Reality video.
Funding provided by the University of South Carolina