Amanda J. Carter: Week 6 (July 9-13, 2012) @ the HistoryMakers

The end of this week officially marks the halfway point in this summer immersion program.  As much as I enjoy learning from this training, I do hope the host of experience I have gained helps to reduce some of the intensity since it can be rather exhausting.  On the other hand, I do recognize how very similar this experience is to a marathon.  While I have never participated in a marathon, I understand that the importance is in setting and maintaining the pace.  By now I have set my pace so all I need to do is maintain it throughout the remaining obstacle courses.

This week seemed a bit hectic with problem solving and task-timing but resulted in a few mid-week changes to our schedules.  We have now moved from evaluating and creating complete EAD (Encoded Archival Description) and EAC-CPF (Encoded Archival Context-Corporate bodies, Persons, and Families) finding aids to spending most of our time working in groups of two to complete our special collections.  IMLS HistoryMakers Fellow Cynthia Lovett, and I will now be processing our “An Evening With” special collections as a team.  I began sorting the files for Richard Parsons, after completing my evaluations and finding aids for Joe Rogers and Joseph Gomer.   Joseph Gomer was a Tuskegee Airman and has such an exciting story.  I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Red-Tail Angels, as they were called. 

Part of our special collections project

Also this week was Dr. Cecilia Salvatore’s archival discussion on collective memory and Dr. Christopher Reed’s African American history lecture on early 20^th century black militancy where we discussed the different perspectives of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.  As much as I enjoyed those lectures, I must admit that the most exciting part of the week was the Friday-Saturday opportunity to participate in an oral history workshop taught by Mr. Leon Dash. 

Oral history workshop

Mr. Dash has conducted extensive oral history interviews including the study of the intricacies of underclass survival of Rosa Lee and her family in Washington, D.C., and a study of adolescent childbearing in When Children Want Children.   I really appreciate that Mr. Dash took the time to share his methodology with us.  It was a pretty phenomenal experience that taught me more about how to conduct an oral history interview than I ever thought was possible.  Although I am not an oral historian, I am certainly inspired to try my hand at interviewing some friends and family.  I think I could greatly improve upon the oral history interview I did with my mother many years ago.  Throughout the workshop, especially when we were conducting mock interviews, I realized how much I have been learning over the past several weeks when I noticed how much my understanding of oral history has improved through evaluating the oral histories at the HistoryMakers. 

These are exciting opportunities we have and I am very grateful to be a part of this learning opportunity.  While I am still quite exhausted at the end of each week, there is a certain level of satisfaction in understanding that the mental and physical fatigue I experience is the direct result of a productive mind and body.  The more I learn, work, and do, the stronger and more capable I will become.

Until next week…

Amanda J. Carter
Franklin Library, Fisk University
2012-2013 The HistoryMakers IMLS Fellow