Recently I met a couple of librarians who advise individual families and communities on archiving their history. As I listened to them talk about their work, I recognized a connection among the work of archivists, historians, and community organizers. Convincing someone that her grandmother’s letters and the old photographs in the attic are valuable historical artifacts is a form of community organizing, akin to the work that activists do to convince people that they have a voice for change. Oral history work is parallel, too, in the way that historians go into communities and convince ordinary citizens that their memories are valuable and they should record them so that their voices and perspectives will not be lost to future generations. There is an urgency to all of this work, because for myriad causes–both cruelly accidental and shockingly deliberate–voices, memories, communities, and cultures are continually in danger of being lost.
Take a look at this beautifully produced publication “My History Is America’s History: 15 Things You Can Do to Save America’s Stories,” which was created at the NEH under Bill Ferris during the Clinton years.
It includes “How to do an interview” and “Playing detective with photographs,” among other useful sections. Some of the people doing this good work today will surely find it useful. I ordered a used print copy on Amazon for a negligible price.
As these commonalities of purpose come into focus, the connections among our LCRM project partners–the Center for Civil Rights (community organizers), the Southern Oral History Program (historians), the UNC Special Collections Library (archivists)–are clearer, and despite its complexity (it is unusual for a collaborative project to have four partners!) the project gains coherence. I’ll post more on project ideas and activities soon . . .