The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

The HistoryMakers® African American video oral history collection

Repository: HistoryMakers

Collection Description (CRHP): The website offers detailed finding aids (some still in process) for hundreds of interviews, as well as links to images and short biographies of interviewees. In summer 2010, a test Digital Archive site went live for registered users (see http://www.idvl.org/thehistorymakers/FAQ.html). The searchable test site contains video clips and transcript excerpts drawn from 400 interviews.

Collection Description (Extant): The HistoryMakers is single largest archival collection of its kind in the world. Our goal is to complete 5,000 interviews of both well-known and unsung African American HistoryMakers. In doing so, we want to include the stories of individual African Americans along with those of African American organizations, events, movements and periods of time that are significant to the African American community. To date, our oldest HistoryMaker is 105 years old and the youngest is 29 years old. We have done interviews in over 80 cities and towns as well as in the Caribbean, Mexico and Norway. Our collection presently houses 8,000 hours of African American testimony on videotape.

Access Copy Note: Betacam, VHS, DVD and MPEG-1 access copies are held for in-house use at The HistoryMakers; Betacam SP, VHS and DVD playback hardware is provided for in-house viewing of the access copies; MPEG-1 copies are searchable and viewable via a digital video database: http://www.idvl.org/thehistorymakers

Collection URL: http://www.thehistorymakers.com/

Date(s): 1999-2005

Digital Status: Yes

Finding Aid URL: http://www.thehistorymakers.com/programs/dvl/finding.asp

Language: English

Interviewees: Joseph Lowery, James Luther Bevel, Lani Guinier, Ruby Sales, Patricia Stephens, Joe Hendricks, H. K. Matthews, Dorie Ladner, Calvin Wallace Woods, Sr., James Forman, Paul Delaney, John Lewis, Tyrone Brooks, Willie T. Barrow, Simeon Booker, Amelia Boynton Robinson, Ernest C. Withers, Dorothy Tillman, Bernice Johnson Reagon, John H. Cross, Jr., Evelyn Gibson Lowery, Andrew Young, Grady Poulard, Dorothy Height, Lottie H. Watkins, Frank Smith, Jr., Michael Mitchell, France Davis, Hellen O’Neal-McCray, Alvin F. Poussaint, Clinton E. Warner, Jr., Edith Irby Jones, Maxine Smith, Colonel Stone Johnson, C. T. Vivian, Al Sampson, John Conyers, Vernon Jordan, Julian Bond, Wyatt Tee Walker, Samuel Billy Kyles, Leo Branton, Jr., Frankie Muse Freeman, Thomas N. Todd, Elisabeth Omilami, Gus Savage, Otis Moss, Jr., Anne Ashmore-Hudson, King Virgil Cheek, Walter Bailey, Gloria Rackley Blackwell, Ann Walker, Leander J. Shaw, Malvin Johnson, Hermene D. Hartman, Jesse Jackson, Sr., Ozell Sutton, Eugenia Fortes, Paul Joseph Adams, III, Dempsey Travis, Ralph Abernathy, Elisabeth Omilami, Josie Robinson Johnson, Archie Epps, Audrey Grevious, Frank K. Ross, Charles Turner, Dan A. Moore, Floyd L. Griffin, Carole Simpson, E.T. Caviness, Keiffer J. Mitchell, Sr., Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, James Pleasant Breeden, Cecil Hale, Constance Ernestine Berry Newman, Clay Evans, Lawrence Guyot, Wadsworth A. Jarrell, Sr., Vincent G. Harding, Herbert U. Fielding, Lutrelle Palmer, Haki R. Madhubuti, John Britton, Angela Y. Davis, Raleigh Trammell, Wade Hudson, Joseph Metz Rollins, Byron Rushing, Ernest G. Green, Price M. Cobbs, Marian Wright Edelman, Sonia Sanchez, Pearl Cleage, Charles C. Yancey, William Gerald Fletcher, Jr., Phillip L. Clay, Joseph Marshall, Curtis Harris, James Cheek, Spencer Leak, Stanley Crouch, Kalamu ya Salaam, John Hope Franklin, Gardner C. Taylor, Roger W. Wilkins, Thomas Fleming, Elnora Daniel, Walter B. Hill, Wesley W. South, Dabney N. Montgomery, Paul R. Jones, Charles Floyd Johnson, Douglas Alan Mann, Doris Ward, Gayraud Wilmore, Jack T. Franklin, June Dobbs Butts, Jeanee Martin Brayboy, Thomas C. Holt, Gwendolyn M. Patton, Edward Irons, Dorothy Cowser Yancy, Ann Cooper, John L. Cashin, Carrie Davis, Evelyn Cunningham, Herman J. Russell, Shelby Steele, Joyce Ladner, Chester Grundy, Fannie Rushing, William T. Coleman, Robert L. Wright, William L. Clay, Sr., Calvin Giles, Joseph A. De Laine, Jr., Nathan G. Conyers, Harry Belafonte, Freeman Hrabowski, Gayraud Wilmore, Russell Sugarmon, George Clements, Arthur Fletcher, Willie Lawrence McCray, Barbara Williams-Skinner, Warner Saunders, Ronald W. Walters, James Paschal, Johnie H. Flakes, Bobby Rush, Asa Hilliard, Jeff Donaldson, Robert L. Woodson, Lou Stovall, Ossie Davis, James Earnest Roberson, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Conrad Walter Worrill, Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, Benjamin Hooks, Brenda Payton, Danny K. Davis, Helen Turner-Thompson, William Lucy, Adjoa Aiyetoro, Jerry Fanion, William Jennings Jefferson, John F.J. Clark, Eldee Young, Sarah-Ann Shaw, Louis Sullivan, William H. Murphy, Frank M. Clark, Nikki Giovanni, Lena Horne, Holmes Daylie, Dick Gregory

Rights (Extant): Access to paper records is restricted. Other restrictions may be applied on a case-by-case basis. All use of materials must be pre-approved by The HistoryMakers® and appropriate credit must be given.

Subjects:

African American arts
African American athletes
African American businesspeople
African American civil rights workers
African American clergy
African American educators
African American entertainers
African American fashion designers
African American journalists
African American lawyers
African American politicians
African American scientists
African American students
African American veterans
African Americans in medicine
African Americans--Employment
African Americans--Social conditions
African Americans--Social life and customs
Hairdressing of African Americans

Genres:

Interviews
Transcripts
Videorecordings