Augusta, GA (WJBF)- An historical Augusta Newspaper from the 70’s and 80’s is now digitally preserved.

Tina Monaco is a library historian, who spearheaded an effort to document garden city history by focusing on Augusta newspaper archives. The first to be completed, the Augusta News-Review.

Tina Monaco is an historian of GA Heritage Room at the Augusta Public Library.

“Very few newspapers in Augusta during that time offered a glimpse into the African American community and the News-Review did that,” she said.

Digital archivist Donnie Summerlin is from the CSRA. He said it’s important to preserve newspapers digitally so they can never be lost.

“The Augusta News-Review is a really valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of Augusta a half century ago. And now it’s freely available online for anyone to browse or search through on the Georgia Historic Newspaper’s website,” Summerlin explained.

Dr. Mallory Millender was the publisher of the News-Review. He said at that time local papers were not correctly telling African American stories– if they were telling them at all. He quoted John Russwurm who created the first African American Newspaper to explain why it was needed.

“Too long have others spoken for us in things that matter dearly. What he really was saying was too long have people misspoken about us,” said Dr. Millender.

Dr. Millender also said preserving the paper means everything. He said it’s not about making his work last forever, but the work of the people he worked with.

“The important thing now is that the newspaper has been digitized. It has been made permanent forever and ever.”

Summerlin agrees.

“As a native of the CSRA it was particularly rewarding to get to put this newspaper title online and make it available to people that I knew growing up and people who are interested in the history of Augusta,” smiled Summerlin.

Anyone interested in reading the Augusta News-Review can CLICK HERE to access those digital copies.