Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South

From OHA Wiki

Overview

The project originated as one of the documentary projects at Duke University. Historians came together in 1980 with a shared concern about the history of African Americans during the Jim Crow era to discuss what could be done to advance the historiography of the period. The historians concluded that they: "...wanted to get beyond this simple dichotomy, to understand the complex realities of African American life, and we wanted this knowledge to emerge from the lived experiences of African Americans." In order to do so, the historians decided that they needed first-hand accounts of the ordinary people who lived through the era. ¹

The project began with two frames of reference. The first was "the belief that, as with the civil rights era, recovering the voices of average citizens provided the best means of exploring the commonalities and differences of the black experience during the Jim Crow period; and second, the conviction that behind the two-dimensional story of oppression and submission there existed a richer, deeper, and more compelling reality which an investigation of the institutions, family and community patterns, spiritual life, and daily living experiences of black Americans in diverse southern communities would reveal." ²

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the aim of the Behind the Veil Project was to collect oral histories of African Americans who lived in the south during the Jim Crow Era (1890-1950).

Methods

The oral history process took place over a three year span, between 1993-1995. Graduate students were trained at Duke University before they went into the field. Upon completion of the training, the students traveled to a community where they did background research. After research, oral histories were conducted.³

The result was about 1,260 interviews, and of those about 314 have been transcribed. The collection is held at the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. The master tapes are currently restricted in use. ⁴

References

(1)Duke University, Behind the Veil-Project Overview," The Center for Documentary Studies, http://cds.aas.duke.edu/btv/btv_basic_html/projectoverview.html

(2) William Henry Chafe, Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South. New York: New Press, 2001. xxix.

(2)Chafe, Remembering Jim Crow" xxix, Duke University, "Inventory of the Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South Records, 1940-1997 and undated (bulk 1993-1997)," Duke University Libraries, http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/btv/inv/, (accessed April 17, 2009).

(3) Ibid, http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/btv/inv/