My friendship with Dr. Joy Kinard, Superintendent of the Colonel Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument is one of the most sincere connections I've established since arriving in the Wilberforce, Ohio area. We've chatted about libraries, museums, African American historical collections, imposter syndrome, God, dating, and have bonded deeply together over being transplants in our new community (Joy moved to Wilberforce in March 2015).
Library literature and trends in our own institutions have proven that collaboration is both innovative and economically advantageous. When libraries, museums, and institutional archives collaborate we must first determine how a prospective partnership benefits all strategically, economically, socially, intellectually, and culturally? What investments make sense? Does it advance our institutional goals? Does it serve our constituency well?
When Dr. Kinard told me she was looking for a place to host the NPS Centennial Story Corps Project, I jumped at the opportunity to partner and connect once again. I knew that this would be great a collaboration because the Payne administrators were musing about the Library as a “place to play and pray”. We had also been discussing personal narrative, spiritual formation, and Payne Seminary as a spiritual retreat during our faculty meetings.
The Ransom Memorial Library features two meeting rooms for quiet study. During our walk through of the building with Dr. Kinard, it was decided that one of the rooms would serve as a welcome area for attendees.
The Story Corps program was a WONDERFUL collaboration for Payne. It gave us the opportunity to invite community members into our space, many of whom were visiting for the first time. We also were able to establish relationships (and in some cases strengthen/reimagine) with Wilberforce gatekeepers and learn about existing partnerships in the community. I learned that Dr. Ski, who I had previously known as an ambassador for Payne and the Wilberforce Community, is a celebrated Paul Lawrence Dunbar Scholar. While waiting for to be interviewed Dr. Ski talked about growing up on the campus of the Historically Black Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, FL where here mother taught. She told us an amazing story about seeing Marian Anderson sing as a young girl. Do you see what happens when folks already primed to tell stories?!?! Oral history just keeps on spilling out!
I am so glad that Dr. Kinard brought Story Corps to Wilberforce and directly to the Ransom Library doors. It really was an incredible experience. For more information about Story Corps and to see pictures/listen to two of the oral histories captured that day, keep on scrolling!
 |
The first Interviewees are checked in. Sisters, the Honorable Mayor of Xenia, Marsha Bayless and Payne's very own Marilyn Hatcher, retired Community Outreach CoordinatorBooker/Gooding Interview
89-year-old Jessie Gooding and his 85-year-old friend, Loretta Booker, recall their time at Wilberforce University in Ohio. They discuss its legacy as the oldest private historically black institution in the United States.
|
Warren Family Interview
91-year-old Harold Warren Jr. tells his son, Lee Warren, about serving as a "Buffalo Solider" duringWW II and his feelings about the Charles Young Buffalo Solider National Monument in Ohio.
In partnership with StoryCorps, the Midwest Region of the National Park Service (NPS) is celebrating the NPS Centennial through sharing and preserving our favorite parks memories. The Stories from the Midwest project will tour our region to record conversations with the local communities, visitors, and employees of the parks, using the StoryCorps interview model: a 40-minute conversation between two people who know each other well.
The NPS Centennial Stories from the Midwest project will:
• Celebrate the diversity of the National Parks in the Midwest Region, with stops that include parks, monuments, historic sites, and the first National River.
• Create a valuable archive of interviews that individual parks are encouraged to access and use.
• Demonstrate why these “places to play in and pray in” have captivated Americans for 100 years through first-hand, personal stories.
 |
| Handy Dandy, what to expect from StoryCorps.org |
• Contribute to the centennial goal to connect with and create the next generation of park visitors, supporters, and advocates.
ABOUT THE PARKS CENTENNIAL
The National Park Service and National Park Foundation are working closely with partners and stakeholders across the country to ensure that the Centennial is more than a birthday. We want every American to embrace the opportunities to explore, learn, be inspired or to simply have fun in their 407 national parks, as well as understand how we bring our work, and the national park experience, to them through our community-based recreation, conservation, and historic preservation programs.
ABOUT STORYCORPS
StoryCorps is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, nearly one hundred thousand everyday people have recorded their stories with StoryCorps; it is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind Several million people listen to StoryCorps’ weekly broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition. https://storycorps.org/about/
No comments:
Post a Comment