When the Smithsonian opens its National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2015, part of its collection will be oral histories of the Civil Rights movement. The project began with an American Folklife Center survey of hundreds of existing oral history collections around the country before the Smithsonian set out to conduct new interviews with those who participated in the movement. For that task, they turned to the Southern Oral History Program at UNC-Chapel Hill.
In the first installment of our series Voices for Civil Rights, Eric Hodge speaks with Seth Kotch, who coordinated the initiative. Seth shares a story from Jamila Jones, who found strength in music during a 1960 police raid on the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee.
These oral histories are being added to the holdings at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.