WHEN: February 18, 2016, 6 - 8 PM
WHERE: Knox Hall, 606 W. 122nd Street, Room 509
The Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History was founded to address both displacement from and resilient community in formerly segregated neighborhoods in Chapel Hill, historically known as “service communities” to the University of North Carolina. Our driving question became: How to do justice by the examples of creative community, struggle, and leadership embedded in the 200 oral histories currently held in the Jackson Center Oral History Trust? In this talk we will briefly address the course of moving from oral history in and as performance towards policy intervention and will introduce basic elements of our change model in practice, including the response-ability of the oral history listener, an abundance-based approach to community development, and the nature of community-first organizing.
Hudson Vaughan is the Deputy Director and a co-founder of the Jackson Center. He grew up in Memphis, Tennessee as the son of a preacher and teacher and became passionate about racial reconciliation and community development in the context of the challenges and strengths of his home community. Hudson graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008, intending to pursue international justice work. Conducting extensive oral histories with Mrs. Jackson and working with the Rev. Troy Harrison, formerly of St. Joseph C.M.E., and Northside neighbors led him instead to dedicate himself to learning history and building home in the neighborhood in which he now lives.
Della Pollock is the Executive Director of the Jackson Center and a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a particular emphasis on performance and cultural studies. Her passion for oral history emerged in collaboration with her colleague in History, Jacquelyn Hall, with whom she first pursued oral histories of desegregation in Northside neighborhoods and was slammed by the head of the former black high school alumni association: “Y’all have studied the hell out of the black community and given nothing back,” he said, “why should I help you?” Della has been trying to respond to that question ever since. She is the editor of two volumes—Exceptional Spaces (1998) and Remembering: Oral History Performance (2005)—and the author of Telling Bodies Performing Birth (1999). She has also reflected on oral history praxis in several essays including “Performance into Policy” (2013), “Doorjambs and the Promise of Engaged Scholarship” (2010), “Moving Histories: Performance and Oral History” (2008), and “Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change” (2005).
SPONSORS: This talk is part of the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the Columbia Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR) and the Oral History Master of Arts Program (OHMA). Support from the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) is provided for programming that embodies late Professor Paul Lazarsfeld’s commitment to improving methodological approaches that address concerns of vital cultural and social significance.
INFORMATION: For more information, please email Amy Starecheski at aas39(at)columbia.edu
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
NO REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED