Narratives of Race, Violence and Identity

• In Event: The Memory of Identity: Co-creating Narratives of Self-discovery in Movement

Abstract

In the fall of 2013, I co-created an interview with Morris Taylor a retired Army sergeant living in Smyrna, Tennessee. Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1959, Mr. Taylor is the son of Southern African Americans who migrated north in search of jobs and racial equality. In his early years, Mr. Taylor experienced elements of the racial divide that plagued the nation, including the 1967 Detroit Riots outside his doorstep. At the age of twenty-two, Mr. Taylor joined the United States Army and served for over two decades. Mr. Taylor’s experiences as a youth in Detroit and as a soldier navigating American military culture were told with a vivid, yet controlled delivery. This paper reflects on the stories that emerge to define the narrator’s life story in the presence of a sympathetic listener. How did the narrator choose to describe the harsh realities of violence and war? How does Mr. Taylor’s storytelling move beyond historical clichés to reveal his personal transformation? How were stories crucial to his identity shaped by his listener, a white female with little experience of war and violence?

Author

• Denise Gallagher, MTSU