Including Students in Oral History Projects: Preserving Black History for Another Century

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Given the tradition of oral history within African-American culture, this component of historiography is both a tribute to the ancestors and a continually effective way to document and disseminate detail about African-American life. Incorporating students into oral history projects is a particular challenge, and this panel explores some of the current works by faculty members at Atlanta Metropolitan State College that tackle this challenge. Topics included are veterans’ lives, the Oyotunji Village of South Carolina Orisha worshippers, Atlanta University Center student protests relating to the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and contemporary memories of grandchildren of the antebellum enslaved.

Sub Unit

• ASALH Centennial Annual Meeting and Conference

Chair

• Harry Okoh, Atlanta Metropolitan State College

Individual Presentations

• Southern Narratives of War: Atlanta Branch Veterans’ History Project - Candy Tate, Emory University

• Revisiting Oyotunji Village - Kenja R McCray, Atlanta Metropolitan State College

• Taking “Black Lives Matter” to CNN: An Oral History of AUC Student Protest Amid the Failure to Indict in the Killing of Mike Brown - Tara Lake, Independent Scholar

• Slave Grandchildren Remember - Pamela E. Foster, Afro-American Historical and Genelogical Society; Learotha Williams, Tennessee State University

Commentator

• Frank Johnson, Atlanta Metropolitan State College