The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
Featured Public Programs
What's in this booklet? 1 3 5 6 7 9 10 11 14 15 16 17 19 21 22 23
A Message from Dr. Ortiz World World II Programs Florida Black History Delta State University Panel An Evening with the Dues Farmworker Awareness Week The 1946 Holocaust Survivor Interviews Oral History & Performance Tale of Two Houses Home Away from Home La Casita Encuentro From Segregation to Black Lives Matter Mississippi Freedom Project Black History Latinx History Featured Workshops
These [oral] histories matter because we learn about the past through the stories that are handed down from generation to generation. They are the narratives that weave the history of our people and give rise to our identities. They are voices that are so often silenced and have struggled for a space to be heard.
LDAP FAMILIA BLOG
Director's Message Since my arrival as director of the Proctor Program in the fall of 2008, SPOHP has organized as well as sponsored and cosponsored hundreds of public programs, symposiums, oral -history workshops, dramatic performances, lectures and history panels at the University of Florida as well as at high schools, colleges, museums and other institutions in Virginia, Arizona, Mississippi, Arkansas and more. Many of our students, staff, alumni and attendees refer to these public programs as “life-changing,” “transformative” and “unforgettable.” I’d like to offer some thoughts on why I think SPOHP public programs are so special and impactful. My idea for initiating the public program series in 2008 comes from my background as an organizer and as a student of comparative ethnic studies. My experiences in these endeavors have taught me that all of the great university research in the world does not matter much unless it is shared with people outside of the Ivory Tower. My academic mentors in ethnic studies taught me that learning is a two-way street. “Community members” have as much to teach university academics as we have to teach them. As the great Italian oral historian Alessandro Portelli notes, oral history is about learning from people rather than studying them. Oral history is a form of dialogical knowledge where meaning is produced through dialog between interviewer and narrator, panelist and audience member, elder and younger person and so on. The kind of tradition that Dr. Samuel Proctor initiated at the University of Florida was about promoting inter-generational conversations. This is why public programs are integral to community-based oral history. As you will see in this booklet, the Proctor Program’s public programs bring together high school students, award-winning authors, professors, workers, veterans, community members, students, staff and many others in meaningful, vibrant and democratic dialog. Many area residents from Gainesville and other parts of Florida have attended scores of our local public history programs. (One gentleman from East Gainesville recently told me that he had attended over 40 of our public programs!) Audience members often comment that these venues offer rare opportunities for people from the region to offer their candid thoughts and opinions on how the University of Florida interacts with the region in positive as well as negative ways. By offering a space for dissent and constructive dialogue, SPOHP is providing critical spaces to help improve our understanding of how to build a more inclusive community.
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Public programs also fulfill a critical part of SPOHP’s social justice research mission. In a typical SPOHP public program, individuals who are normally not “experts” are the ones whose voices are highlighted. Yes, we have featured Pulitzer Prizewinning authors and distinguished historians; however, we have also lifted up the voices of agricultural workers, refugees, prisoners of war, and other individuals whose stories are too often forgotten in our world. SPOHP builds on the legacy of our founder, Dr. Samuel Proctor, by illuminating the stories of people ignored in most mainstream textbooks. Some call this “history from the bottom up.” At SPOHP, we call it common sense. In this booklet, you will see history come alive with excitement, passion and incredible intensity. The past decade has been a time of great challenges in the world. We have discovered that history is no longer an elective, it is a necessary part of engaging with the most important issues of our time. There are three signature moments in the history of SPOHP’s public program series that I am especially fond of. In the spring of 2009, we organized the Florida Black History: Where do we Stand in the Age of Barack Obama event. Florida Black History launched a decade-long oral history initiative resulting in over 1,000 interviews that are now housed at the Joel Buchanan African American Oral History Archive at Smathers Libraries. In 2013, we hosted Dr. Alan Rosen who discussed his book, "The Wonder of Their Voices: the 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder." Dr. Rosen introduced us to the first interviews ever conducted with Holocaust survivors. Finally, after two years of arduous planning, we held From Segregation to Black Lives Matter, a three-day national symposium which opened the Joel Buchanan Archive on the tenth anniversary of our 2009 Florida Black History program. This was the largest African American history symposium in the history of the University of Florida and it attracted hundreds of attendees who joined us “live” as well as through our live stream links. In this booklet you will see the oral histories conducted by our students, staff, faculty and volunteers presented through a wide array of methods. These are diverse stories and they all speak to the desire of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program to make history meaningful as a tool for reflection, civic engagement, and the improvement of the human condition in the 21st century. Sincerely, Paul Ortiz, Professor of History Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
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World War II Programs SPOHP’s first two public programs focused on the history of World War II. The Proctor Program is unique in the United States among university-based oral history centers in that all of our directors have been military veterans. Professor Samuel Proctor was a World War II veteran. Dr. Julian Pleasants was a Vietnam War veteran. Paul Ortiz is a third-generation military veteran who served in Central America in the 1980s as a paratrooper and combat radio operator in U.S. Special Forces. SPOHP’s first public program during Dr. Ortiz’s tenure featured Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson speaking at the Pugh Hall Ocora on September 24, 2008. Rick discussed the second installation in his Liberation Trilogy titled, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. Over too hundred people packed into the Ocora and several World War II veterans including UF History Professor Emeritus David Chalmers—himself a World War II veteran— engaged in spirited dialogue with Mr. Atkinson. Our second public program of the year featured a documentary film highlighting the voices of American GI survivors of the Bataan Death March in World War II. Produced by Deborah Hendrix and Diane Fischler, the premier of I Just Wanted to Live attracted a large number of military veterans, including survivors of the Bataan Death March, including Herbert Pepper, John Bumgarner MD, Victor Cote, and Conrad Alberty. (Herbert Pepper actually joined us against doctor’s orders! He directed his daughter to check him out of the Jacksonville VA Hospital saying “I wouldn’t have missed this event for the world.”) Each of the veteran survivors spoke at the event. They expressed great relief of being able to tell their stories to an appreciative audience and discussed why it was so difficult to share these experiences to Americans—even family members—after the end of World War II. The making of I Just Wanted to Live is a story in itself. Diane Fischler worked at SPOHP for nine years (2000-2009) as an editor, historian, and writer. One of her main duties was summarizing the oral histories in the program’s World War II collection. In 2008, she suggested to Deborah that they make a documentary based on four of SPOHP’s oral history interviews with Bataan Death March survivors. Diane wrote and narrated the documentary, and Deborah connected the varying POW themes against the backdrop of graphic war footage and photos related to these prisoners’ horrific war experiences. The documentary is now housed in the educational resources archives of several museums across the country, including the National POW Museum in Andersonville, Georgia; the National World War II Museum in New Orleans; and the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas.
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I Just Wanted to Live! Baatan Death March Doc Watch it here: shorturl.at/cfqv6
Panel of speakers following POW screening. All have passed away except Julian Pleasants, former director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.
Victor Cote shakes Herbert Pepper’s hand, they had never met. Both followed the same sequence of events following capture and surrender, Philippines, in April of 1942. Pauline Pepper in red, wife of Herbert, and herself a WWII nurse veteran.
This event had over 200 attendees.
Former SPOHP Director Julian Pleasants, speaks to UF ROTCI prior to event.
Diane Fischler, Herbert Pepper, Deborah Hendrix.
Next day Veteran’s Day event at Kanapaha Veterans Memorial Park following POW screening, SPOHP tabling and Sheila Payne is shaking Victor Cote’s hand.
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Florida Black History: WHERE WE STAND IN THE AGE OF BARACK OBAMA On March 17, 2009, SPOHP organized the Florida Black History: Where we Stand in the Age of Barack Obama event. The event highlighted the importance of African American history as well as the urgent need to gather, preserve, and promote Florida Black History to younger generations. Featured speakers included United States Senator Bill Nelson, and UF President Dr. J. Bernard Machen. Mr. Joel Buchanan, a leading figure and historian of the Civil Rights Movement in Gainesville facilitated an exciting roundtable of distinguished speakers including: Ms. Sherry DuPree a librarian and educator focused on African American history; Mrs. Evelyn Marie Moore Mickle, the first African American graduate from the College of Nursing; Dr. Gwendolyn Zohara Simmons, a civil rights activist, scholar, and and former professor at UF; and Mr. Daniel Harmeling, civil rights activist and Bethune Cookman professor.
QUESTIONS ADDRESSED: Why do you think Black history is important? Has the meaning of Black history changed with the election of Barack Obama? How may we best preserve and promote Black history for future generations?
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2010-2011 Delta State University Panel: CIVIL RIGHTS HISTORY As part of SPOHP's annual Mississippi Freedom Project trip in 2010 and 2011 students were able to attend panels at Delta State University (DSU). In the summer of 2020, SPOHP co-organized a civil rights history panel with faculty, staff and students at Delta State University. The panelists who participated in this event included: Ms. Arlene Sanders, Chair of the DSU Diversity Advisory Committee; Akinyele Umoja, Professor of African Studies at Georgia State University; Reverend Alan Bean, founder of Friends of Justice; and Ms. Margaret Kibbee, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [veteran]. On September 21, 2011, SPOHP collaborated with DSU once again. The panel formed out of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1967 book, "Chaos or Community: Where do We Go From Here?" Dr. King chronicles the arc of the Civil Rights Movement and the need to focus on issues relating to economic justice, democracy, and Black history. The panelists included: Rose Turner, UFCW union organizer, Mayor Dianna Freelon-Foster, Professor Chuck Westmoreland, and Lawrence Guyot, SNCC veteran and cofounder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
Watch it here: shorturl.at/GMOQS
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An Evening with the Dues: PIONEERS OF THE US CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT In 2011, SPOHP organized a very special public program with the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations featuring the remarkable husband and wife duo of Patricia Stephens Due and John Dorsey Due. Known as the First Family of Civil Rights in Florida, The Dues regaled an audience of approximately 400 people how they worked with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and other organizations to build the modern civil rights movement in Florida. The program was moderate by SNCC veteran and UF Professor Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons and retired Levy County Teachers’ Union President Daniel Harmeling.”
Watch it here: shorturl.at/JNW29 About the Dues: In 1960, Patricia Stephens Due and five other students from Florida A&M University (FAMU) made history when they served 49 days in jail after being arrested for a sit-in at a lunch counter in Tallahassee, FL. Mrs. Due and her fellow protestors refused to pay a fine and instead chose to go to jail in order to highlight the injustice of legal segregation. This was the first jail-in of the US Civil Rights Movement and e start of Mrs. Dues work fighting for human and civil rights.
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I like to call myself, not ... a civil rights lawyer, but a Freedom Movement lawyer. [There's] a difference. Because civil rights is always defined by the power structure as to what 'civil rights' are. John Dorsey Due Mrs. Due and her husband, civil rights attorney John Due, have fought for human rights since their days on the campus of FAMU. Mrs. Due has been awarded an honorary doctorate from FAMU. She is also the recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Outstanding Leadership, the Ghandi Award for Outstanding Work in Human Relations, and the NAACP Florida Freedom Award. John Due is a 1963 graduate of the FAMU College of Law and was inducted into the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame in 2018. John Due has spent countless hours with UF students throughout the past decade and he has given numerous lectures at Levin Law School. He also received the Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from UF in 2020.
"We have got to stop reinventing history." Patricia Stephens Due
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Farmworker Awareness Week: FARMWORKER AWARENESS PANEL Since 2009, SPOHP has worked to spotlight human rights issues effecting agricultural workers in Florida. SPOHP became a regional co-sponsor of National Farmworker Awareness week in 2011. The first FAW took place in 1998. Since then, FWA has evolved to include a weeks worth of activities like documentary screenings, speakers, plays, days of service, protests, panels, and more. The purpose of these events is to educate the public on the everyday experiences and struggles of farmworkers. One of these events, cosponsored by SPOHP, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), and Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF), included a panel that featured three SPOHPers. These students produced and digitized 20 oral history interviews in conjunction with SAF. These interviews, turned vignettes, featured the stories of SAF activists who worked directly with the migrant workers. The students gained insight into how the farmworker community is being affected by the current political, legal, and social climate.
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FIELDWORK SPOHP has continued to shed light on farmworkers rights through the creation of public programs, podcasts, and teaching materials. Most recently, the Latinx Diaspora of the Americas team in conjunction with the CIW led a trip to Immokalee, Florida with the purpose of interviewing both farmworkers and staff at the CIW. The collaboration is a result of SPOHP's continued support of the CIW through supporting events such as the Boycott Wendy's protest at UF that took place spring 2019.
The 1946 Holocaust Survivor Interviews: "THE WONDER OF THEIR VOICES" On February 12, 2013, SPOHP organized "The Wonder of their Voices" event in conjunction with UF Hillel. During this public program, Dr. Alan Rosen gave a lecture at UF about his research on a series of some of the earliest oral history interviews ever conducted with Holocaust survivors. The importance of these early interviews with Holocaust survivors, recorded by Dr. David Boder in the years immediately following World War II, are detailed in Rosen’s book, “The Wonder of Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder.” The event also included a book signing.
Watch it here: shorturl.at/mwyJM
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Oral History & Performance: A NOTE FROM DR. ORTIZ The staged performance of recorded interviews has become one of the most exciting new genres of oral history. Giving a dramatic reading or a rehearsed performance of an interview allows an actor to provide an in-depth rendering of life experiences that makes a lasting impression on audiences and listeners.The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program has collaborated with talented playwrights including faculty and graduate students at the University of Florida in order to create new venues for our narrators’ voices to be heard. Noted artists such as Alachua County’s first Poet Laureate, E. Stanley Richardson, have performed iconic oral history interviews from our collections at the Harn Museum, Actor’s Warehouse, Pugh Hall and other venues.Live stage performances provide unique opportunities for community dialogs on issues that are often submerged or silenced. After each night of Jeffrey Pufahl’s “Telling Gainesville,” an oral history-based play based on the experiences of Vietnam War veterans, I facilitated an afterperformance discussion with audience members. Issues such as Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), readjustment to civilian life, and memories of combat were addressed candidly and thoughtfully.
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Gator Tales: ARCHIVAL DRAMA WITH UF COLLEGE OF THE ARTS & SCHOOL OF THEATRE + DANCE “Gator Tales” was an original play devised and directed by UF School of Theater and Dance professor Kevin Marshall in collaboration with SPOHP in 2015. Based on oral histories from SPOHP’s African American History Project Archives, "Gator Tales," brings the unique experiences of African American students at the University of Florida from “integration” to the present to life on stage.The play was performed by College of Arts faculty, MFA students, and undergraduates at the School of Theater and dance. Proctor Program staff participated in cast readings and rehearsals in order to help performers gain a greater understanding of the fourteen narrators whose lives were being rendered on stage.Gator Tales premiered on Friday, February 13, 2015 at the Blackbox Theatre at McGuire Pavilion at the University of Florida. After a successful run of sold-out performances, “Gator Tales was staged at the Oral History Association’s annual meeting the following autumn in Tampa, Florida.Gator Tales was also nominated for the 2015 Freedom Expression of Award by Amnesty International at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland where it was performed before a packed audience.
Watch it here: shorturl.at/nzEU9
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From Colored to Black: ARCHIVAL DRAMA WITH UF COLLEGE OF THE ARTS & SCHOOL OF THEATRE + DANCE The play "From Colored to Black," directed by Jeffrey Pufahl and Brittney Caldwell, was performed during March 2019. It showcases over eighty years of Florida’s Black Oral History from SPOHP's archive with stories from the St. Augustine Civil Rights Movement, the resettlement of Rosewood, Gainesville’s Old Lincoln High School, and more. This unique theatrical experience provides the foundation for critical dialogue around Black History and identity.
Voices from the March: A MULTI-MEDIA EXPERIENCE
On January 27, 2018 fall interns and staff performed an original multi-media play titled "Voices from the March" at the 2018 UF Social Justice Summit. A collaboration between the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies, this verbatim theater piece compiles oral history narratives from the 2018 Women’s March on Washington and the experiences of the students who documented those voices. Voices from the March was directed by 2018 SPOHP Scholar-in-Residence Jeffrey Pufahl whose work at the University of Florida is focused on creating inter-campus and inter-community partnerships to develop theatre-based programming that addresses social issues and community health. The 2018 Summit theme was “Allyship: Identify, Interact, & Impact.” The Summit agenda included outstanding programs from community members, students, and scholars across many disciplines.
Watch it here: shorturl.at/eBGIL
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The Tale of Two Houses: A DIALOGUE ON BLACK AND LATINX HISTORY AT UF On March 30, 2018, the "Tale of Two Houses" event was a discussion on the histories of the Institute of Black Culture and the Institute of Hispanic-Latino Culture (aka "La Casita"), including their founding and their entwined legacies. The event featured Dr. David Horne and Maria Masque. Dr. Horne (Cal State Northridge), was one of the organizers of the Black Thursday protest that led to the founding of the IBC. Masque was a former La Casita director (19951997) who actively supported efforts for awareness and engagement among students of color. The panel, moderated by student activists at UF, was not a formal discussion, but rather an open dialogue between these speakers and the UF community.
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Home Away from Home: REMEMBERING REFUGEES IN FLORIDA On September 20, 2018, SPOHP teamed up with Welcoming Gainesville & Alachua County to present a collection of oral history interviews conducted by Seyeon Hwang, a doctoral student at the University of Florida with help from SPOHPer Grace Chun. The interviews focus on the lives of refugees resettled in Jacksonville. The panel consisted of organization members that provide services for refugees to discuss themes of displacement, resilience, and “making it home."
SPEAKERS Basma Alawee - Refugee and refugee organizer with the Florida Immigrant Coalition Travis Trice - Affiliate of the World Relief, Jacksonville, FL Jose Sanchez - Affiliate of the Church World Services, Miami, FL
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La Casita Encuentro: A PUBLIC DIALOGUE ON THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF A COMMUNITY INSTITUTION The La Casita Encuentro event took place on October 3, 2018. The purpose of this event was to facilitate a public dialogue between founding members of UF's Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures, known as "La Casita," and those who were there during its earliest years. As the University of Florida rebuilds La Casita, we invited members of the community to take part in a dialogue on where we go from here. We asked what can we do today to sustain and deepen our commitment to La Casita, ethnic studies, and civic engagement at UF and beyond.
SPEAKERS: Minerva Casanas-Simon was the first director of La Casita, serving during the 1994-1995 academic year. Maria Masque was the second director of La Casita; her tenure ran from 1995 to 1997. Dr. Milagros Rivera was a faculty member in the UF College of Journalism and Communications from 19932000 and was heavily involved in La Casita. Dr. Fernando Fagundo is emeritus professor of Civil Engineering at UF and was part of the Hispanic Faculty Association when students petitioned to create La Casita.
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From Segregation to Black Lives Matter: 2019 SYMPOSIUM The From Segregation to Black Lives Matter Symposium took place March 21 - 23, 2019: This event marked the celebration of the opening of the Joel Buchanan Archive of African American Oral History at the University of Florida. Also known as the Joel Buchanan Archive, it contains thousands of unique stories and experiences shared by Black elders in Florida who came of age in the era of legal segregation. Nurtured by rich traditions of family, community, and institutional support, many of the narrators and interviewees highlighted in this collection formed the leading cadres for the Civil Rights Movement throughout the nation. This event not only marked the official unveiling of the archive but also featured panels, lectures, and documentary screenings. These discussed family memories of slavery, resistance to segregation, the modern Civil Rights Movement, narratives of Black and Latinx intersectionality, and more. The symposium aimed to create an interactive platform for constructive dialogue to discuss the latest trends in African American history from K-12 to higherÂ
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education. Attending scholars, educators, and community leaders were encouraged to reach out to anyone who may be interested in engaging with these critical topics. The Symposium allowed all to take part in a dialogue surrounding African American history through films, podcasts, book signings, and lectures at the symposium.
"This goes not only for content, but also for design. Because as I mentioned earlier, SPOHP has consistently built avenues towards public engagement and pedagogical use of the Joel Buchanan Archive at the same time as it has built the archive itself." Benji de la Piedra, Columbia OHMA Blog
DR. JUSTIN DUNNAVANT
DR. ELAINE SPONHOLTZ
It was an honor to participate in the 2019 "From Segregation to Black Lives Matter Symposium." As a former graduate student working at SPOHP, the program provided me the opportunity to learn from — and work with — a diverse group of forward-thinking academics, community members, and local elders. What began as an attempt to document the complex and often understudied experiences of African Americans in Alachua County has grown to include more than 400 oral history interviews with African Americans throughout the state of Florida and beyond. Listening to the various participants during the symposium, it was great to hear how far the project has come and the ways in which the program continues to impact students and communities alike. These narratives not only validate the experiences of hundreds of African Americans from Jim Crow to the present era, but also demonstrate the significance of oral history in presenting a more complete picture of African American history in this country. Now that these interviews are publicly accessible, I am excited about what lays ahead for the future of this project. Students will begin to ask new questions, researchers will explore lines of inquiry, and communities will have a rich repository of narratives to draw inspiration.
The strongest impressions of attending the conference arose from quiet conversations I had with several invited guests and scholars. After a session early on at Library East, I had a chance to talk with John Nelson, of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) chapter in Jefferson County, Florida. The description he gave me of his long career path, both in the military and in government, was inspiring. Sherry Dupree, who I have known as a community organizer and scholar, was also there with Mrs. Thelma Edwards, a distant relative of Emmett Till. Mrs. Edwards remarked that she thought she was the only one living, who knew her cousin Emmett during his lifetime. The poignancy of that remark cut through the sense of remoteness that comes with the knowledge of a long-ago death. It is a remoteness that comes with an academic type of knowledge, the knowledge of tragedies through black and white images found in old newspapers. It is a kind of epistemological distance scrubbed of emotion. The wistful tone of her voice made clear that she still carries the pain of that loss, and that she knows she is the living embodiment of her cousin’s memory.
Interested in the Symposium? Watch it here: shorturl.at/hnAF9
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Mississippi Freedom Project: POST TRIP PANELS SPOHP's Mississippi Freedom Project (MFP) conducts a fieldwork trip every year. The MFP is an award-winning fieldwork initiative focused on interviewing civil rights veterans and participants of Freedom Summer in 1964, but also includes the voices of contemporary activists, local politicians, labor organizers, educators, and students throughout rural Mississippi. Each year the research team records new interviews for the MFP Archive. While the students' primary objective is to conduct interviews, they attend trainings, facilitate public events during the trip, attend workshops, sing freedom songs, write reflections, transcribe interviews, partake in community service events and in post-trip analysis. Additionally, students are expected to participate in a panel discussion of their experiences the following fall. The panel also serves as a platform to discuss future suggestion to continue improving the fieldwork trip for both students and guests.
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“The 2017 Mississippi Freedom Project trip changed my understanding of race in America and my view of the country itself. I was very fortunate to be a part of this eye-opening experience in which I learned so much, and from now on I will share my memories with my students and promote social change through service… Overall, the experience was life changing. We not only visited historic places but engaged with the community through service. In this seven-day field trip, we gathered stories that ought to be heard, so future generations learn from their past. This knowledge will create awareness of the consequences of social injustice.” —Marcela Murillo, MFP 2017 Santa Fe College Professor
"I have always been global-minded, concerned with the welfare of all peoples, being a citizen of the world, and the like. I focused on global issues… yet this trip to the Delta showed me the uglier side of our great nation, the embedded horror in the still-bloodstained South. I am determined to begin with awareness. As I said, my generation has not found its voice, its cause yet. But we cannot rest on the laurels of our forefathers, we cannot bask in their achievements, because that is not sustainable behavior. We must find our fire, our voice, and wield it fiercely. But awareness and education are the first steps. Unless my generation understands the dire state of the world we inherit, we cannot do much. I can say that the trip to the Delta has awoken the activist in me. And she will not rest until ignorance is no longer a viable excuse for inaction." —Breanne Palmer, MFP 2011
Attorney Advisor at US Department of Justice for Immigration Review
“The Mississippi Freedom Project trip empowered me to engage in ongoing discussions about racism and discrimination in ways I never imagined possible. I was shocked by both the hospitality of movement leaders towards me, an outsider in every sense of the word, and by the power of my own voice as I interacted with the incredible foot soldiers of the American Civil Rights Movement… The Mississippi Freedom Project trip opened my eyes to what it means to organize a community, and what it means to sacrifice everything you have in the name of a movement that somehow supersedes the individual and is ingrained in the very identity of a people… The MFP showed me the power of individuals in shifting the course of history, and I know that the stories I was privileged to interact with will not only inform my continued study of history, but also allow me to serve as an activist and an ally.” —Hannah Lyons, MFP 2018 2019 Goldwater Award recipient at the University of Florida
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Black History: DOCUMENTARIES/CLIPS Gator Tales features the experiences of African American students at the University of Florida, from the first students who attended over 50 years ago to members of the current student body. The 2015 performance honored stories from SPOHP's archival collection. View it here: shorturl.at/blN19 The Making of the Institute of Black Culture at UF was screened on March 22, 2019 at our "From Segregation to Black Lives Matter Symposium." The screening followed a brief commentary by Dr. Tameka Bradley Hobbs and a question and answer segment with those involved in the making of the documentary. From Colored to Black examines North Central Florida's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. The 2019 play highlights historical figures who were not necessarily famous at the time but played important roles in shaping Florida's integrative history using SPOHP archival materials.
UPCOMING DOCUMENTARIES The Oscar Mack Documentary and Barbara Higgins Documentary are currently in production. The former features Oscar Mack, a man thought to have been lynched in Kissimmee, Florida in 1922. The documentary details his escape under an assumed name and his life thereafter. The latter highlights Barbara Higgins, a revered community leader and organizer from Gainesville. The documentary shares the story of this remarkable woman whose legacy continues to shape the community today.
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Latinx History DOCUMENTARIES/CLIPS The Making of the Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures, "La Casita" at UF was screened on March 22, 2019 at our "From Segregation to Black Lives Matter Symposium." The screening followed a brief commentary by Dr. Nicolas Vargas and a question and answer segment with those involved in the making of the documentary. Documenting Ethnic Studies Struggles Through Oral History was a panel discussion featuring Dr. Paul Ortiz, Norma Gonzalez, Sean Arce, and Jonathan Gomez on the role of oral history in ethnic studies in 2015. View it here: shorturl.at/mtHJK Siempre Adelante: A Look at Faith and the Immigrant Struggle is a 2013 documentary that features the life narratives of four men and women living in Alachua County who emigrated from three different countries. The stories highlight the challenges that new immigrants face in Florida and ask what it means to be an immigrant in a society that prides itself as being “a nation of immigrants.” View it here: shorturl.at/dfCE5 Iglesia Hispana de Alachua Mural was an oral history fieldwork initiative in the fall 2018 that sought to highlight the experiences of members of the Iglesia Hispana de Alachua. After conducting the interviews significant clips were molded together to create a brief account of their stories. This clip was played during the unveiling of a mural depicting the church.
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Featured Workshops: WHAT IS THEIR IMPORTANCE IN ORAL HISTORY? One of the most powerful aspects of oral history is its simplicity; anyone with patience, dedication, and respect for people and communities can become an excellent oral historian. SPOHP receives consistent requests every year to conduct workshops for UF classes, researchers hoping to add an oral history component to a current project, and individuals or organizations hoping to start oral history projects in their own communities. Conducting workshops helps us at SPOHP to slow down and reflect on how we do the work that we do, and what makes it successful. A good workshop is not simply some top-down, didactic transfer of knowledge and expertise, but an exchange in which people learn partly by recognizing and reflecting on what they already know, and become not only more knowledgeable but more comfortable with what it means to record and archive history through people's voices and firsthand experiences. In doing these workshops, we have had the honor to meet some incredible people and communities, and to see a number of successful projects and collaborations emerge as a result.
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NAPLES, FL In July of 2015, SPOHP staff Ryan Morini, Deborah Hendrix, and Justin Dunnavant traveled to Naples, Florida to give a 2-day workshop on what oral history is and the importance of it. The workshop went over useful applications of oral history, best interview methods, how to archive interviews, and finally the importance of public outreach and engagement.
VETERANS WORKSHOP Throughout the year, our Veterans History Project (VHP) Coordinator Ann Smith and our Digital Humanities Coordinator Deborah Hendrix lead workshops focused on SPOHP's partnership with the Library of Congress. SPOHP has also conducted VHP workshops in Tallahassee and Panama City requested by US Congressmen.
DUCKWATER, NV
BAKER COUNTY, FL
SPOHP partnered with the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe in central Nevada, to conduct two workshops in October 2016 and March 2017. These helped Duckwater start their own oral history project. SPOHPers Ryan Morini, Deborah Hendrix, Johanna Mellis, Michael Barry, and Holland Hall discussed oral history interview methods, best archival practices, and offered some handson work with audio and video recording equipment.
In collaboration with the Baker Coalition of Communities for Environmental Justice (BCCEJ), SPOHP staff Ryan Thompson, Deborah Hendrix, Brenda Stroud and others conducted a series of interviews with community members on health concerns they felt were impacting their community. The interviews took place on May 2017 and served to inform the BCCEJ on how they could best support the community.
GAINESVILLE, FL
AFRICATOWN, AL
On June 3, 2017, SPOHP made the short trip to the Matheson Museum, located in Gainesville, Florida. The workshop, lead by Ann Smith and Deborah Hendrix, focused on the importance of archiving interviews as a means to preserve history. The workshop described the technical aspects of converting a raw interview into an archive quality version that is accessible to the public through the University of Florida Digital Collections.
In October 2017, SPOHP partnered with Oberlin College to hold a workshop in Africatown, Alabama, just outside of Mobile. SPOHPers, Ryan Morini, Ebony Love, and Aliya Miranda, presented on oral history methods, while Inupiat elders Dr. Rosemary Ahtuangaruak and George Edwardson presented on environmental justice. The workshop helped to start a community oral history project which resulted in over 30 interviews.
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In this history, we found ourselves and found each other and together created a different world. We must accept responsibility for passing on this collective information to as many people as possible, creating and developing organizers to organizing for action and not have them sit on the sidelines doing nothing. I ask all of you to join with me in what may be our final fight.
LAWRENCE GUYOT GUYOT'S NEWSLETTER | DEC 2009
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