Even though African Americans have made significant
contributions to American life, society and culture, the world is
still largely unaware of these contributions as well as the many personal
stories of African American contributors. The HistoryMakers
goal is to change this. With exceptions, embraced primarily within
the historical lexicon are stories that focus on slavery, the abolitionist
movement, the civil rights movement, music, sports and entertainment. Even
then, only a relatively small number of African Americans have ever
received the attention they deserve. Furthermore, existing oral
history collections still consist largely of transcribed, audiocassette
interviews; access to them is extremely limited; and, most are ill
suited for easy transfer to today’s media formats.
The HistoryMakers represents the single largest archival
project of its kind in the world, outdistancing the existing video
oral history collections of New York’s Schomburg Library and
the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum. The HistoryMakers is
unique among these other collections of African American heritage,
because of its massive scope. Like other oral history collections,
The HistoryMakers collection hearkens back to the earliest
and most authentic efforts to capture the voice of a people, while
introducing state-of-the-art technology and increased accessibility. The
HistoryMakers wants to provide living proof that African American
history did not begin or end with the civil rights movement, that
the HistoryMakers number in the thousands and that their names
are not just Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, Jr.
and Ella Fitzgerald.
The initial goal of The HistoryMakers is to complete
5,000 interviews of both well-known and unsung African American HistoryMakers
within the next five years, creating an archive of unparalleled importance
and exposing the archival collection to the widest audience possible.
Not since the recording of former slaves during the WPA Movement of
the 1930s (1936-1938), when teams of writers/researchers were sent
throughout the South resulting in approximately 2,300 mostly hand-recorded
interviews, has there been a methodic and wide-scale attempt to capture
the testimonies of African Americans.
By recording the messages of leadership, achievement
and perseverance embodied in the life stories of these HistoryMakers
and sharing the stories with the world community through its website
and its ongoing public programs, The HistoryMakers hopes to
enrich the lives of all ethnic groups, both young and old.
An integral part of the American experience, The
HistoryMakers' stories are ones of success against the odds, of
achievement in the face of adversity, and in all cases, they are stories
of inspiration. They are America's Missing Stories.
The HistoryMakers is a national, 501(c)(3)
non-profit educational institution committed to preserving, developing
and providing easy access to an internationally recognized, archival
collection of thousands of African American video oral histories.
The purpose of this archive is to educate
and to:
show the breadth and depth of this important American
history as told by the first person;
highlight the accomplishments of individual African
Americans across a variety of disciplines;
showcase those who have played a role in African
American led movements and/or organizations; and
preserve this material for years and generations
to come.
The HistoryMakers is committed to creating
and exposing its archival collection to the widest audience possible
using collaborations as well as the Internet, a digital archive and
other new technologies.
The HistoryMakers is headquartered in Chicago,
Illinois, a city rich in African American history, and was incorporated
in July of 1999 by public historian, Julieanna L. Richardson, a Harvard
trained lawyer, video producer and former American Studies major.
Richardson combined her various work experiences, her passion for
history and her diverse background in theatre, law, television production
and the cable television industries to conceptualize, found and build
The HistoryMakers. She serves today as Executive
Director as well as a member of The HistoryMakers Board of
Directors.
It was during her undergraduate studies at Brandeis
that Richardson first experienced the power of oral history, while
conducting research on the Harlem Renaissance. At that time,
she interviewed Butterfly McQueen and Lee Whipper among others. Having
access to these poignant life stories "made the history really
come alive for me,"says Richardson. From this early exposure,
the seeds for The HistoryMakers project first took root.
A HistoryMaker, African American by descent,
is a person: 1) who by his/her own accomplishments has made significant
strides; and/or 2) who is associated with a particular movement, organization
or association and event or time that is important to the African
American community.
We are in the process of trying to identify our HistoryMakers.
Some are elderly and hard to find. Some of their notoriety may have
waned, but their historical significance has not. They may have interesting
insights to share about important events or historical periods.
They may be your neighbor, your relative, your friend or maybe someone
you have worked with or admired over the years. They may be someone
you have read about or heard their story. Please feel free to nominate
someone as a HistoryMaker. While doing so, make sure to tell
us their background, their accomplishments and/or their role in African
American history. It is extremely important that you also include
appropriate contact information. To complete your nomination, visit
http://www.thehistorymakers.com/nominat.
It is out of this quiltwork of individual stories that we hope will
emerge and new and more accurate version of 20th century
African American history.
The
HistoryMakers is a video oral history archive committed to making
history come alive, making it accessible to the public through its
website, digital archive, special events, public programming and more
specifically through The Historymakers Education Instituteand
The HistoryMakers Speakers Bureau. In 2002, The HistoryMakersarchives
were designated a special collection as part of the Illinois State
Library System. The archives are open to the public during the hours
of 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday by appointment only. Users must present
a state-issued driver’s license, an imprint of their credit
card and/or a deposit of $150.
While there is no cost for using the archives, we
actively encourage the purchase of memberships by all of our users
to help defray the costs of maintaining this important archival collection.
INTERVIEWS
As
of April, 2003 The HistoryMakers archive contains over 500 videotaped
oral history interviews. Each HistoryMaker interview is approximately
two hours in length and costs $2,500-$5,000 to produce. This
includes the cost of background research, videotaping, editing, transcribing,
encoding, digitizing, archiving each interview. Until the digital
archive is assembled, users can sample the archive holdings via The
HistoryMakers website (www.thehistorymakers.com). Here,
the interviewed HistoryMakers are grouped thematically for
ease of use. Each HistoryMaker is featured with a prominent
photo, a biography, an archive of photographs from throughout his/her
life and video clips from his/her video interview. The uniqueness
of this site lies in its interactivity and the type of information
offered. The user can see the HistoryMaker live and hear
his/her voice, adding a human quality to historical education.
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