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Having grown up in an affluent white area of New York, Ramona Battle of Lynchburg remembers the “unspoken” view of educators in her public school that black students would not advance to college.  Her father, a World War II veteran and the first in his family to attend college, would not stand for that.  When she was a teenager, Martin Luther King, Jr. came to speak with her activist father’s group about peacefully protesting – she was so in awe she could only utter a few words to him.  Ramona’s story was one of many collected during a “School Desegregation: Learn, Preserve, and Empower” oral history event at the Lynchburg Public Library. A crowd of about 50 people gathered, many to go on the record about their own experiences with desegregation of public schools and to show photographs or documents bearing witness to the social change.  For full story click here.

This year marks 150 years since the U.S.-Dakota War. The war, fought in southwestern Minnesota in the late summer of 1862, ended with hundreds of people dead, the Dakota people exiled from their homeland and the largest mass execution in U.S. history: the hangings of 38 Dakota men in Mankato on Dec. 26, 1862.  The Minnesota Historical Society has recorded dozens of oral histories from descendants of those touched by the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. To gather the stories, Minnesota Historical Society staff conducted interviews in homes throughout the Minnesota River Valley and in tribal community centers on Dakota reservations.  For full story  which includes link to web site, click here.

More than 30 veterans from Eastern Connecticut were interviewed by Griswold High School students Wednesday.  The veterans talked about their military experiences, which ranged from World War II to Desert Storm and Iraq, as part of a national oral history project. For full story click here.

Originally organized in 1865 by freed slaves to honor Union Civil War dead in Charleston, South Carolina, First Decoration Day evolved into Memorial Day, a federal holiday to honor Americans who died in all wars while serving in the armed forces. Today on Memorial Day we take the time to remember and celebrate men and women who have given their talents, their time and, too often, their lives to serve their country.  During World War II, the entire Martha’s Vineyard community mobilized to support the War effort, both on the home front and overseas. At the Martha’s Vineyard Museum the personal stories of Vineyard people who survived the war years are a part of the Museum’s oral history collections. These stories bring alive the horror and confusion of battle, the exhilaration of victory and the shared sacrifice and anxiety experienced by those on the home front.  For full story, including excerpts from interviews, click here.

The wisdom of Africa suggests: “Every time an elder dies, we lose a library”. Recognising this ancestral truth, the Island Stewards Camp and Spelman College participated in a joint oral history project to document the personal histories of eight women of wisdom in the Bahamas.  Over the course of four days, starting on March 15, 2012, seven young Bahamians, stewards from the annual Island Stewards Camp, and six Spelman scholars, accompanied by project facilitators, recorded vital history from elder women, while building cross-border relationships. For full story click here.

Narooma’s pre-war history is the setting for a new play currently being developed by South East Arts.  “Sunshine” follows the story of two characters, Alma and Bill, who live in the bustling town of Narooma in 1939 – a town of fishing, timber and shipping, as well as a summer playground of the well-to-do set from out of town. But war will soon change the world they know and love. For full story click here.

Aboriginal history expert Dr Carroll Go–Sam says southeast Queenslanders generally know very little about the Brisbane region’s indigenous history.  Very few indeed would know about the indigenous history of South Brisbane and what was now called Musgrave Park, widely known as a meeting place for Aboriginal people, she said.  For full story click here.

According to William S. Schneider, professor emeritus and retired curator of oral history at University of Alaska Fairbanks, the postal delivery men generally considered enduring extreme cold, high winds, driving snow and other inclement weather conditions just part of the job when they contracted to carry mail to remote regions of Interior Alaska during the first half of the 20th century. In his brief yet informative new book, “On Time Delivery,” Schneider documents the rise and heyday of rural postal service between the many small settlements that dotted the landscape during and immediately after the Gold Rush. It’s the story of men who braved the elements to maintain a connection to the outside world for people who were otherwise wintered in and largely left to their own devices. For full story click here.

A new short documentary film was screened at the Art Theater in Long Beach over the weekend, part of the Freedom and Hope Film Festival.  “The End/Beginning,” narrated by Sophal Ear, a Cambodian-American academic, traces the route his mother took to escape the Khmer Rouge through Vietnam and provide for her family along the way.  For full story click here.