This month we are talking about Confederate Monuments. In this episode you will hear from John Sellars, a former UNC student activist, Mistyre Bonds, a current student activist, and Dr. William Sturkey, a history professor, as they discuss a confederate statue, Silent Sam, on the UNC campus.

In the second part of our series on environmental racism and oral history, Danielle and Pavithra discuss specific moments in the oral histories they collected that illuminate lived experiences of environmental racism in the South. Danielle, and Pavithra also explain how they showcased their projects to the public and what they learned from the experience of collecting interviews.

This month, Press Record is excited to bring you Part I of our first mini-series on oral history and environmental racism featuring the work of two scholars: Danielle Purifoy and Pavithra Vasudevan. In this episode, you'll meet Danielle and Pavithra and listen to them discuss their projects and the meaning of environmental racism. You'll also hear from some of the people they interviewed explain their firsthand experiences fighting for environmental justice in the South.

This month, Press Record dives into an ongoing project about oral history and immigration in North Carolina. In the following episode, Carol sits down with Maria Ramírez and Laura Villa who both worked on the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Project. New Roots/ Nuevas Raíces is a bilingual digital archive that contains oral histories from Latin American migrants in North Carolina as well as North Carolinians who have worked closely with migrants in the state. In the following half hour, you'll hear oral history clips, conversations about what went into making a bilingual digital archive, and how New Roots has moved beyond the walls of academia.

This month, Press Record revisits questions about silence and rural segregation by taking a look at the Backways project one year later. The structure of this episode is a little different; the following half hour represents the highlights of two conversations with Rachel Cotterman, a field scholar here at the SOHP who is currently working on the Backways project. Rachel talks about silences in the archives, the legacy of Jim Crow in North Carolina, and what it means for her to do a research project close to home. We hope this episode gives you an inside look at some of the research going on here at the SOHP and the questions some of our field scholars are navigating in the process of doing oral history.

Episode 11: Oral History and the ERA by Southern Oral History Program

From fighting for the ballot to running for office, Southern women have been on the frontlines of many flash-points in women's political history. Oral histories offer a particularly rich way to understand these histories. In this episode, we'll first hear from field scholar Taylor Livingston about women and the fight for suffrage, including a story about South Carolina suffragist Eulalie Salley involving buttermilk and poision. Next, Carol and Rachel play clips from the SOHP archives that illuminate why women decided to run for office in the South. Interviewees featured include Grace Towns Hamilton, the first African American woman elected to the Georgia General Assembly, Isabella Cannon, the first female mayor of Raleigh, and Eva Clayton, the first African American woman to represent North Carolina in Congress. Finally, you’ll hear a Carolina Women's Center forum on women and politics.

In this episode you will hear from students and veterans navigating the process of oral history. First, you’ll hear from graduate field scholar Kimber Thomas, who discusses her role as undergraduate internship coordinator leading an oral history project on veterans. Next, you’ll hear from the interns involved and participating in this project and their experiences as first-time interviewers of local veterans. Interspersed, you will hear some clips from the interviews the undergraduate interns recently conducted. Finally, you’ll hear some clips from The Southern Oral History Program’s interview database. Their narratives range from an African American Vietnam veteran who discusses his difficulties adjusting to life at home after deployment, a North Carolina public servant reflecting on the positive character lessons he learned during his deployment, and two veterans of the Iraq war discussing their experiences with mental health and community during and after war.

In response to the recent upsurge of activism and protests in Charlotte, Press Record is releasing a special episode of archival interviews. The following episode features a collection of interviews from our archives on school desegregation and economic justice in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hopefully these excerpts offer some additional historical context and serve as tools to talk about the history of economic and political disfranchisement that informs today’s activism in Charlotte.

Press Record is back for the first episode of the school year! The main questions guiding this month’s episode are: how have activists incorporated oral history into their work and how can oral historians take their work outside the academy and begin to mobilize in their communities? The complete answers to these questions, of course, are beyond the scope of 35 minutes. However, in three segments, you will hear an array of responses that will hopefully begin the conversation. First, we hear from Dan Kerr about his time organizing the Cleveland Homelessness Oral History Project and his views on oral history and activism. Next, Carol Prince discusses her experience at a workshop on oral history and movement building in Charleston, SC. In that segment, you will also hear from other folks from the community who attended the workshop and why they chose to use oral history in their own projects. Finally, you’ll hear a clip from the SOHP archive of Linda Upton Hill, a feminist activist storyteller who was involved in Knoxville, TN’s Carpetbag Theater Project on how she understands activism, storytelling, and oral history.

Our final episode for this summer at the Southern Oral History Program explores the complex world of emotions and oral history. How can we better understand the emotions that surface during life history interviews? What are some ways we can learn to listen for less obvious emotional cues? Why is vulnerability such an important part of doing oral history? Episode 6 tackles these questions and more in three segments. First, Charlotte Eure talks to Taylor Livingston about listening for emotion that sometimes gets lost in transcription. Next, Carol Prince conducts Press Record’s first phone interview with Professor Natalie Fousekis, director of the Center for Oral and Public History at California State University at Fullerton, who discusses the role of of emotion in her research. Finally, Professor Rachel Seidman recounts an intense moment in her interviewing career and offers some tips for students new to navigating emotion and oral history. Find the SOHP’s twitter page here. Feel free to tweet your feedback @SOHPoralhistory or email your comments, questions, or ideas to us at [email protected]!