The following is an announcement from Spelman College:
Decades of history have been captured in Spelman College’s “Their Memories, Our Treasure: Conversations with African American Women of Wisdom,” an engaging compilation of narratives as told by 22 African-American women from the South who range in age from 60 to 104. Not since the Radcliffe Black Women Oral History Project in the late 1970s has there been an oral history project that focuses exclusively on African-American women.
In a book that chronicles more than 11 decades, one story is told by Mrs. Ruth Scott Simmons, the sister of the founder of the Atlanta Daily World newspaper, about her paternal grandfather, who along with other slaves helped Union soldiers during the Civil War. “What they did was to show the Union Army a way through swamps. The soldiers would not have known because they were from the North,” she said. “…When the war ended, one of the Union generals said to the coloreds who helped them: ‘You all have been such a help to us. What can we do for you?’”
What the generals did would change this family’s history. This is just one of many oral histories as told by ordinary women who have lived extraordinary lives in the South.
“The goal of this project is to give voice to our elders because their memories are repositories of wisdom that are needed in the community,” said Professor Gloria Wade Gayles, founding director of the Spelman Independent Scholars Oral History Project and Eminent Scholars chair in Independent Scholarship and Service Learning at Spelman College. “We need to celebrate each of these women because we stand on their shoulders. What we have today, they essentially made possible. They taught our parents, sat in the pews of our churches, and helped our community members develop a sense of worth. They worked in libraries, hospitals, and day-care centers and were by the side of mothers and fathers who were sharecroppers.”
Research for the recently published second anthology of oral narratives was conducted by Spelman students during a two-year period and led by Professor Gayles. Spelman released the first volume of narratives from the ongoing oral history project in February 2004. The intergenerational learning experience, which pairs one to two students participating in Spelman’s Independent Scholars, or SIS, program with an elder often results in a unique bonding experience that continues beyond the required number of interview sessions.
Most oral history projects typically focus on gathering the perspectives of individuals with national name recognition. Spelman’s oral history project and resulting anthology are distinctive because the majority of the women highlighted, while they are not household names, still have “an extraordinary story,” noted Professor Gayles. The women were selected based on newspaper articles and recommendations from churches and community members.
Referred to as Women of Wisdom, the 22 women profiled in “Their Memories, Our Treasure: Conversations with African American Women of Wisdom,” come from varied economic, educational and social backgrounds. One is Ann Cooper, fondly referred to as “The Wisest of the Wise,” who to this day remains an active community volunteer. “It was a grand and satisfying experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed it,” said Ms. Cooper of her time spent with then-Spelman seniors Bernice Appiah-Pinkrah and Crescent Mason. “I felt that I was adding to the experience of the students who interviewed me.”
Mason, now a doctoral student at Temple University, said her experience with the SIS Oral History Project, has propelled her to seek ways to incorporate the accomplishments and life stories of African-American women into her scholarly studies. “These women are an untapped resource,” she said. “They have so much to teach us. The stories in the book are captivating and a very personal experience for everyone who reads them; whether or not they are African-American or women – there is something in each story for all of us.”
Others profiled in the two-volume book include Mrs. Cornelia Bailey, nationally recognized as groit of Sapelo Island; Mrs. Faye Bush, president of Newtown Florist Club, the only organization of African-American women in the South that advocates against environmental racism; Mrs. Nell Simms, the first African-American woman to be licensed for a day-care center in the city of Atlanta; Ms. Annie Jewell Moore, a pioneering fashion designer whose work was recognized in Vogue magazine; Dr. June Dobbs Butts, the first African-American woman to work on the staff of Masters and Johnson and the aunt of the late Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson; Mrs. Julia Bond, the mother of NAACP executive Julian Bond; and Ms. Marguerite Simon, professor emerita at Spelman.
Spelman’s Independent Scholars Program
Spelman’s Independent Scholars Program is a two-semester independent, interdisciplinary and intergenerational learning experience open to Spelman College students across all majors. SIS enhances critical writing and critical thinking skills. The first semester of the program focuses on research and interviewing and the second semester focuses on transcribing and editing. Guest lecturers include a gerontologist, oral historians, a museum curator, an archivist and a physician-researcher.
Spelman College:
Celebrating 125 years, Spelman College is the only historically Black college in the nation to be included on the U.S. News and World Report’s list of top 75 “Best Liberal Arts Colleges — Undergraduate,” 2005. Located in Atlanta, Ga., this private, historically Black women’s college boasts outstanding alumnae, including Children’s Defense Fund Founder Marian Wright Edelman; U.S. Foreign Service Director General Ruth Davis; authors Tina McElroy Ansa and Pearl Cleage and actress LaTanya Richardson. More than 83 percent of the full-time faculty members have Ph.D.s or other terminal degrees and the student-faculty ratio is 12:1. Annually, nearly one-third of Spelman students receive degrees in the sciences. The students number more than 2,186 and represent 43 states and 34 foreign countries. For more information regarding Spelman College, visit: http://www.spelman.edu.
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