Historical facts can seem brittle and unreal as time goes on and they become simple statements. But sometimes and issue is kept as compelling as ever via oral histories via recordings, tapes and films.
But what about the days when oral histories weren’t the rage? Oral histories were sometimes done via good, old fashioned letters. And the The Greensboro Historical Museum has this moving online exhibit. The site explains:
In the Fall of 1932 the students at Jonesboro Elementary School, Greensboro, N.C., under the direction of Mr. Abraham H. Peeler, undertook an oral history project to document the memories of their parents, grandparents, or relatives. They captured these memories in brief compositions, which were placed in a folder “Slavery As We’Ve Heard It.”
Read them…and visualize them…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.