Black History Month: A Special Black Oral History Project

AP story/Detroit News: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting funds a year-long project, “Storycorps Griot,” stories of African Americans. Sound Portraits Productions (from whence Storycorps) will collect 1500 interviews in 9 locations. The recordings will be kept at the Library of Congress (all StoryCorps recordings go there), as well as to the future Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“Griot” comes from a West African tradition: it is “a role of honor, designating someone who maintains community tradition and memory through storytelling, music, and dance.” [source]

The cities on the tour: Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Clarksdale, Mississippi; Detroit, Michigan; Montgomery, Alabama; Selma, Alabama; Newark, New Jersey; and Oakland, California. (I count 8, maybe home-based New York City is the 9th, or maybe Washington DC?)

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Posted by Susan A. Kitchens on February 12, 2007 in • Oral History Projects
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