For those who want to see what a real oral history program looks like, consult the following notice and url (includes large number of interviews available online):

* Southern oral history program to host conference on
"the long civil rights movement: histories, politics,
memories"

The Southern Oral History Program at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill will host "The Long Civil
Rights Movement: Histories, Politics, Memories" on
April 2-4, 2009 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The
conference, open to scholars and the public, will bring
together academics and activists who are pushing the
boundaries of civil rights scholarship and re-imagining
the place of civil rights history inside and outside
the academy. Participation is free, though registration
is required.

The conference is one part of a three-year
collaboration, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, to experiment with new ways of producing
and publishing cutting-edge research on the "long civil
rights movement," an approach that re-examines that
movement chronologically, demographically,
thematically, and geographically. Project partners
include the Southern Oral History Program at UNC's
Center for the Study of the American South, the
University of North Carolina Press, the UNC School of
Law Center for Civil Rights, and the UNC Academic
Affairs Library.

"The Long Civil Rights Movement: Histories, Politics,
Memories" challenges the traditional understanding of
the civil rights movement as a 1960s phenomenon,
stretching its timeline to include the movement's
origins in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as the activism
it inspired through the end of the twentieth century.
This approach expands the regional focus of the civil
rights movement beyond the South, stressing the
region's convergences with other parts of the U.S., and
around the globe. It also incorporates study not just
of the struggles for social justice, but also of the
forces arrayed against them.

The conference features an exciting line-up of short
papers examining the civil rights movement from a
diversity of viewpoints. There will be plenty of time
for conversation and audience interaction. Speakers
will include Peniel Joseph on the Black Power movement,
Zaragosa Vargas on Mexican-American labor activists,
and Nancy MacLean on race and education in the modern
era, as well as many more cutting edge historians of
the long civil rights movement. Thomas Sugrue, Bancroft
Award-winning author of "The Origins of the Urban
Crisis" and the newly published "Sweet Land of Liberty:
The Forgotten Struggles for Civil Rights in the North",
will deliver the keynote address, "The Civil Rights
Movement Up North and Down South," on Friday, April 3,
2009.

To register for this conference or to see our full list
of panelists, please visit http://sohp.org. For further
information, please contact conference coordinator
Joshua Davis at [log in to unmask] or (919)
962-0455.

******************************************

Doug Deal
History/SUNY Oswego
 

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