Online registration is now available for the 2020 Annual Meeting. You will need to use your Memberclicks account in order to register. If you don’t have an account, you will need to create one. ***Please make sure to select a type of registration on the form (i.e Member with Institutional Support, Member without Institutional Support, Student Member, Non-Member, or Non-Member Student) otherwise you will not actually be registered for the conference.

• The program schedule is available here.
• The descriptions of the pre-conference workshops are available here.

For more information, see our Annual Meeting Registration Page.

This year’s Annual Day of Giving will be August 26 and all donated funds will help sustain OHA’s endowment. The endowment helps pay for scholarships to the Annual Meeting; helps us stage webinars and other professional outreach and education; allows us to support other oral history organizations like the International Oral History Association. And most of all, a strong endowment ensures a strong financial future for OHA so that it can continue its support and leadership for oral history work. You can support the OHA here: oha.memberclicks.net/2020-day-of-giving.

Thank you!

The OHA has been working on a strategic planning process since 2019. At the 2019 Annual Meeting Council engaged in a planning retreat, and we held focus groups and one-on-one interviews with members. Taking all of this into account, at our Mid-winter Meeting in Feb 2020 Council developed the following mission, vision, values, goals and strategies.

We then paused our work to respond to the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our original intention was to continue to refine success indicators for each goal, create a timeline for implementation, and prioritize our strategies before sharing this document with committees and membership for feedback, but the ongoing uncertainty and heavy workload created by the pandemic has led us to decide to share this document now, as is.

We feel that this draft plan still provides a powerful framework for our work, even as we have shifted to unanticipated tasks such as preparing to hold meetings online and developing remote recording guidelines. We are sharing this for feedback now, so that we will be ready to prioritize strategies as short, medium and long term and develop an implementation plan later this year.

For our members: We invite you to read and respond to this draft, and begin to ponder how you as a member might contribute to implementing it, both in this time of crisis and in the medium to long term. We also ask you to consider how this plan serves you and all the members of the Oral History Association. In our recent Statement on the killing of George Floyd and solidarity with Black Lives Matter, we discussed the need to confront institutional racism in our institutions, and this work extends to the OHA itself. Though this strategic plan is not the only place we will describe and commit to anti-oppression work within our organization, it is important for us to address it here intentionally. So we ask you for particular feedback on the ways we’ve included diversity and inclusivity, how this may be lacking, and how we can improve and expand this work.

This initial phase of feedback will be open until August 9, 2020. Council will then review and integrate feedback from the membership and OHA committees and distribute a revised draft for membership approval in September.

Strategic Plan PDF: http://www.oralhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/OHA-Strategic-Plan-For-Membership-Circulation-July-2020.pdf

Give feedback here: https://forms.gle/Qs1nk3epnUTiZnRe6.

The Oral History Association is proud to partner with the Columbia Oral History Master of Arts Program to present a summer workshop series on Anti-Oppression and Oral History. This series will consist of five virtual workshops: an introduction to an anti-oppression approach to oral history work, and four follow up workshops exploring project design, interviewing, and transcription from an anti-racist and decolonial perspective.

The workshops are free and open to the public- though please consider donating to cover the costs of the facilitators. Any donations that go beyond covering these costs will be used to support a Black incoming OHMA student.

For more information: http://oralhistory.columbia.edu/blog-posts/summer-workshop-series-on-anti-oppression-and-oral-history

To register: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/columbia-oral-history-ma-program-3604748837

SERIES AT A GLANCE

July 25, 2020, 1:00 – 4:00 PM
Identifying Patterns: How Oppression and Abuse May Show Up in Oral History
Noor Alzamami and K.K. Hammond

August 7, 2020, 3:00 – 6:00 PM
Amplifying Oral Histories of Resistance
Sara Sinclair

August 13, 2020, 1:00 – 4:00 PM
Listening for Embodied Knowledge: An Approach to the Oral History Interview
Nyssa Chow

August 22, 2020, 4:00 – 7:00 PM
Talking White: An Anti-Oppression View Towards Transcribing Black Narrators
Alissa Rae Funderburk

August 27, 2020, 1:00 – 4:00 PM
Decentering Dominance: Language Justice in the Field
Fernanda Espinosa

*All times are listed in Eastern Standard Time

The OHA congratulates our 2020 Emerging Crisis Research Fund Winners:

• • Ricia Chansky’s “Mi María” project is a large-scale public humanities project that uses oral history and other biographical methodologies—contextualized in critical disaster studies and environmental humanities—to study the impacts of Hurricane María on the people of Puerto Rico while working to resituate the national narrative from stories about the people to those by the people. This new phase of the project, “Sheltered in Place,” works to understand connections between the climate emergency and the public health crisis of Covid-19 in marginalized and underserved communities that are disproportionately impacted by both. A secondary objective of this project is to devise methods for creatively listening to and circulating life stories in a time of necessitated physical distancing.
  • Sierra Holt’s project is to produce an oral history of the descendants of the community who live in or near Lambert Lands. Lambert Lands became the home of newly emancipated people from Bedford County, Virginia in 1843. After establishing their settlement, this group obtained a deed, built a church, and developed the oldest Emancipation celebration, which continues today. They also were a stopping point for those escaping slavery in the South.  Since its creation, the legacy of Lambert Lands has continued despite threats of violence from the Klu Klux Klan, growing poverty in Appalachia, and numerous drug epidemics.  To fully comprehend the history of this community, Holt will also research and interview distant relatives who hold knowledge of the community’s origins in Bedford County, Virginia. For preservation, the results of these interviews will be donated to a library or archive housed at an academic institution or museum, particularly one that is focused on Southern and/or Appalachian Black history.

By Kristine McCusker
June 2020

             Greetings from the Executive Office as we all continue to social distance and work from home. Middle Tennessee State University has reopened a bit, but with the high rates of covid in Rutherford County, we decided we would wait until the numbers fell before reconvening in our campus office. If you try to reach us, it’s still best to email us at OHA@oralhistory.org at least until August.

By now, you have read President Allison Tracy-Taylor’s column informing you of the switch from a face-to-face conference to an all-virtual one. This was a necessary step, given the coronavirus uncertainties and our unwillingness to put our membership in unsafe situations.          Thankfully, we have the good advice from the American Council of Learned Societies and the experience of other professional organizations to guide us in our negotiations with our conference hotel in Baltimore. That expertise guided our successful renegotiation of the contract with no financial penalties. We are grateful to our peer institutions for their good advice throughout these difficult months.

Thanks to Louis Kyriakoudes, OHA’s co-executive director, we have also been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for more than $43,000. This has been Louis’ covid-quarantine project: to see what money the federal CARES and other legislative acts might have to help us weather the economic downturn associated with the virus. The NEH money will pay for some employment costs as well as assist us in putting on the virtual conference.

Finally, we are grateful to Vice President Dan Kerr, Program Co-Chairs Kelly Navies and Shana Farrell and Local Arrangements Co-Chairs Catherine Mayfield and Linda Shopes for their hard work on submitting a $10,000 grant to the Maryland Humanities Council. While they were not successful (covid was the culprit here), we’re grateful for their efforts in writing this grant.

June 25, 2020

Greetings, all.  I’m writing to give you a brief but important update on our 2020 Annual Meeting.

For the safety and well-being of presenters and attendees, we’ve decided to forego our traditional in-person conference this fall and are shifting to a virtual format. Registration will be delayed a bit, but please know we’re working diligently to open it. Sessions will be held primarily on Zoom. The program schedule is still being developed, and the Program Committee will provide presenters and attendees information and instructions on how to participate in virtual sessions.

We still plan to hold our keynote address, plenaries, pre-conference workshops, business meeting and networking events, as well as provide access to virtual tours. As information on these events and how to participate virtually becomes available, I will let the membership know.       Finally, in accordance with Maryland social-distancing orders, we also plan to offer regionally oriented in-person programming in Baltimore in October. Expect more information on these events soon.

We are working with the Hyatt Regency Hotel to rebook our meeting there for 2023, and we look forward to experiencing the city of Baltimore then.

I’m also happy to announce the OHA has been awarded a CARES Act Grant of $43,460 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grant will support staff salaries and allow us to host a curated collection of sessions and events from the 2020 Annual Meeting on our website.

There are more updates and information to come, and I thank you for your patience as we work to shift the meeting to a virtual one. This is uncharted territory for us, but I’m confident the 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting will be engaging and enriching.

Beyond this, I hope you all are staying safe and sane.

Best,

Allison K. Tracy-Taylor
OHA President

June 5, 2020

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by a member of the Minneapolis Police Department. Following Mr. Floyd’s death, protests and calls for change and an end to police brutality have risen throughout the United States and internationally. The Oral History Association stands in solidarity with the family of Mr. Floyd, Black Lives Matter, protestors, and communities of color, and we echo this call for change. The killing of George Floyd is not an isolated incident, but another event in a long history of state violence and brutality toward people of color in the United States—a history that predates our country itself.

Institutionalized white supremacy is a disturbingly prominent part of American history, placing barriers to economic, social, and educational equality and creating a criminal justice system which is deeply punitive towards Black Americans. Further, militarized police actions that threaten a free press and freedom of assembly have worked to create a terrible legacy of violence and suppression towards those working to change this country.

As oral historians, we understand that through the stories of people—citizens and activists—we can confront oppression and work to create an equitable and just society. In our commitment to diversity, inclusivity, and respect, and to a historical record that documents the experiences of unheard and marginalized voices, we must listen to and amplify the demands of people and communities of color. We must continue to document and expose the injustice so many have suffered for centuries, and develop new projects to expand these efforts.

In this work, it is essential we adopt anti-racist methods and practices. Further, we can and must work to address institutional racism in our institutions and our field, through developing and supporting leaders of color, providing anti-oppression training, and continually working to center the voices and experiences of those most directly impacted by oppression. People of color, whether they be colleagues, narrators, students, or patrons, must be supported and valued. Historical knowledge around police brutality and systemic racism is essential to addressing both, but Black and Brown people must have a clear, equal, and respected role in developing this knowledge.  

Many of our members have dedicated their careers to documenting stories of democratic citizen action and how these efforts can enact change. We have a responsibility to understand and celebrate these successful efforts, and to engage in this work ourselves. There are a number of ways we can support current protests and calls for justice: register to vote, sign petitions, support protestors or participate in protests ourselves, donate to groups and funds working to end police violence and systemic racism, call our legislators, and educate ourselves.

As Black Americans and those acting in allyship in our communities, states, and country engage in difficult and transformative work to end police violence and racism, work that will continue long after the current moment, we are committed to supporting them and participating, now and in the future. Black Lives Matter.

The following organizations have endorsed this statement:

Baylor University Institute for Oral History
Columbia University Oral History Master of Arts Program and
Columbia Center for Oral History Research
Oral History Archives at Columbia
Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic (OHMAR)
Texas Oral History Association (TOHA)
UNT Oral History Program
UW-Madison Oral History Program