ABSTRACT

What can a focus on a past oral history project on the Civil Rights Movement teach us about best practices and an antiracism approach today? This article grew out of the 2020 Oral History Association virtual meeting panel, “Is Oral History White? Documenting Race in Three Baltimore Oral History Projects,” and examines that question by investigating the McKeldin-Jackson Project, an oral history of the Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore produced by the Maryland Historical Society in 1976. The article has a forward-looking focus on lessons that we might glean as oral historians today, lessons that apply not only to historical societies or to oral histories of the Civil Rights Movement, but also to museums, archives, and public history projects of all kinds. The paper expands on the question of whether oral history is white by interrogating what whiteness means for the field of oral history. Through this lens, three themes from the McKeldin-Jackson Project emerged: white interviewer/Black narrator dynamics; the biographical framing of two public figures (Theodore McKeldin and Lillie May Jackson), and why that was problematic; and what I call the project’s invisible architecture—the white foundations, including the historical society itself, that made the project possible. Finally, I offer some possible solutions for both individuals and institutions to work toward in building antiracism practices in oral history.

摘要

关注过去关于民权运动的口述历史项目可以教给我们什么关于当今最佳实践和反种族主义方法的知识？这篇文章源于 2020 年口述历史协会虚拟会议小组，“口述历史是白人吗？记录三个巴尔的摩口述历史项目中的种族”，并通过调查 McKeldin-Jackson 项目来检验这个问题，该项目是马里兰历史学会于 1976 年制作的巴尔的摩民权运动的口述历史。这篇文章具有前瞻性的重点我们今天作为口述历史学家可能会收集到的教训，这些教训不仅适用于历史社会或民权运动的口述历史，而且适用于博物馆、档案馆和各种公共历史项目。这篇论文通过询问什么来扩展口述历史是否是白人的问题白度意味着口述历史领域。通过这个镜头，出现了 McKeldin-Jackson 项目的三个主题：白人采访者/黑人叙述者动态；两位公众人物（西奥多·麦凯尔丁和莉莉·梅·杰克逊）的传记框架，以及为什么这是有问题的；以及我所说的项目的隐形建筑——白色的基础，包括历史社会本身，使项目成为可能。最后，我为个人和机构在口述历史中建立反种族主义实践提供了一些可能的解决方案。