Tag Archives: LaBudde Special Collections

The 1968 Oral History Project Launches

Aerial view of a group of protestors in the middle of the street.

In this photo from the 1968 Riot Collection in UMKC’s LaBudde Special Collections, protestors march down Vine at Flora and Paseo.

On April 4, 1968, in the midst of nationwide social and political turmoil, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. On April 9, the day of his funeral, Kansas City (MO) Public School officials chose not to cancel classes. In protest, students from Lincoln, Manuel, and Central High Schools marched from school to school and finally to City Hall. They were followed by police officers dressed in riot gear. Though it is unclear what prompted police officers to begin firing tear gas on the crowd, the confrontation between police and protestors escalated. By that night, the demonstration had given way to chaotic riots that lasted four days. Many buildings around 31st Street and Prospect burned, protestors and officers were injured, and six African American citizens were killed. The 1968 riots were a painful moment in Kansas City’s history, but they also raised questions and launched conversations about racial tensions and social disparities—conversations that continue today.

(For a more detailed account of these events, see Joel Rhodes’ article “It Finally Happened Here” in the April 1997 issue of the Missouri Historical Review.)

The 50th anniversary of these events this spring prompted articles and documentaries (like this one by KSHB), panels (like the “’68: The Kansas City Race Riots Then and Now” held at the Kansas City Public Library), and exhibits (like this one at the Central Branch of the Kansas City Public Library). KCUR drew attention to the collection in UMKC’s LaBudde Special Collections, and called for help identifying the subjects of the photographs. The unnamed faces and unclear contents of those photos reflected a crucial problem: we needed to do more to preserve people’s memories and perspectives. Photographs and official reports are important parts of the historical record, but so, too, are the recollections of the people who participated.

Black and white photo of a line of police officers wearsing gas masks. Two of the police officers look at the camera.

In this photograph from the 1968 Riot Collection in UMKC’s LaBudde Special Collections, police officers line up outside of City Hall wearing gas masks and carrying billy clubs.

To correct this problem, KCUR’s Director of Community Engagement Ron Jones, Miller Nichols Library Advancement Director Nicole Leone, and UMKC Assistant History Professor Sandra Enriquez teamed up to launch the 1968 Oral History Project, an effort to interview Kansas Citians who experienced or participated in the 1968 demonstrations. Their goal is not only to gather recollections of the protests, but also to understand the broader context of racial tensions and social problems in Kansas City before and after 1968. I was invited to join the project as a graduate assistant.

At our first recording session, held at the Lucile Bluford Branch of the Kansas City Public Library in May, I watched Dr. Enriquez conduct three interviews. Though I am no stranger to interviewing—my background is in newspaper journalism—I was grateful for the opportunity to observe an oral history interview. There are subtle but important differences in the historian’s approach to interviews: Where journalists are focused on the details of a specific event, historians want to pull back and get a bigger picture, understanding the context that motivated the interviewee and influenced their perspective. Reporters are often pressed for time, keeping interviews tightly focused, asking questions that they hope will provoke clear answers and interesting quotes, and focusing on how the interview relates to the story at hand. Oral historians have the luxury of more time to follow the subject down interesting trails of thought. Perhaps even more important, oral historians do not always have a clear goal for the interview, except to preserve the subject’s responses. As a result, historians cover more terrain—I find myself wondering what a future historian will curse me for not asking about during my interviews.

I conducted our second round of interviews on Saturday, June 16, at the Southeast Branch of the Kansas City Public Library. My greatest fear was that, despite my backup batteries and backup recorders, I would run into some technological problem. All went smoothly, though, and I was able to settle in to listening and asking questions. In a future post, I’ll talk more about the interview process, some of the things I am wrestling with in my role as an oral historian, and the challenges of conducting oral histories. For now, though, I will say that it is fascinating to sit and really listen to a variety of people share their overlapping but different stories. Some themes emerge, some of the same names and places come up again and again, but each person also brings a unique perspective, shaped by their families, their experiences, and by their lives after these events.

This is my first foray into oral history, and I am hooked. Maybe it’s the former journalist in me, but the opportunity to engage in a conversation about people’s memories is a powerful experience. Not only do I believe that oral histories complement existing archival sources like photographs and documents, but studying oral history has prompted me to rethink the historical sources I encounter. We often fall into the trap of taking written sources at face value, as moments somehow frozen in time. As I listen to how seamlessly our interview subjects connect the events of 1968 to the social and political struggles facing our country today, I’m struck with the knowledge that all of our experiences and memories are influenced by what came before, and will continue to impact the events that follow. Examining the complicated interaction of context, continuity, and change is what gives history its thrill.

We have conducted six interviews so far. We are hoping to interview far more to gain as much understanding as possible, and one of my jobs is to find additional interview subjects. So please: If you or someone you know would be willing to share your experiences of the 1968 protests and riots in Kansas City, I would be grateful to hear and record your stories. Please reach out to me at kbcm97@mail.umkc.edu. You can also find me on Twitter at @katebcarp.

 

LaBudde Special Collection Transcription: Learning from One and Many Voices

Coming back to work on transcriptions for LaBudde after having worked on transcriptions from interviews I had conducted for the LatinxKC project has been a little bit of an adjustment. It is interesting looking at the interviews now from the perspective of having finished the oral history class as opposed to my thoughts while I was taking the class. I remember the frustration of trying to hear and sort out many voices as opposed to just one voice, but I have now come to see the place for different approaches. Having read about the therapeutic benefits of a group interview, I can see why someone might choose the more informal round table method as a way to preserve history. I can also see the benefits of a monologue and removing some of the external sources of intimidation which might threaten to question a person’s memory. One of the primary take aways I had from the oral history course was the importance of memory and finding how events felt and were remember for individuals and communities. I have noticed that one benefit of a relaxed group is that the group self corrects some of the flows in memory in such a way that it allows for the speaker to preserve their memory of the event in a less threatened way. Although the little group may correct each other on the dates, the shared community of the group, particularly in the lesbian round table interview I’m working with, seems to be very conscious and sensitive towards the feelings and memories of the other group members. Yet, I have also found that self correction occures for individuals without the group, such as in the monologue I have transcribed. The difference is that a group self correcting often becomes chaotic and the very corrections the group wishes to impose can be lost within the jumble of words, laughter, and jesting which are usual benefits of such groups. The individual on the other hand, when self correcting, is limited to their own conflicting recollection, and although more understandable, the corrections can still result in relatively jumbled and uncertain conclusions. What the monologue style confession does give is a free flow of what the narrator finds important. I say confession, because with the existence of the microphone, the narrator is still very aware that they are speaking to other people and wants to please those listeners. They must do so, however, without those listeners being there to give supportive listening cues or to directly participate in the guiding of the conversation. So, in some ways, the monologue is the most authentic confession of the person’s memories and values of what was important. But in other ways, the lack of a living person and the smile or nod of their head, can leave narrators monologueing to expectations which are not even there.

The group interview, in contrast, would appear to have the greatest level of interruptions, tangents, and outright questioning of the narrator’s memory. Yet, the comfort of having friends and a shared sense of support and community in the group interview of the lesbian round table allowed the speakers to question each other without fear. Thus, despite the frequent outbursts of laughter and side comments, the group is comfortable and most members are able to reflect on the events and what it felt like to them.

On a more critical note, I do not believe I would prefer to conduct either of the interview forms I’ve been transcribing. The monologue, while therapeutic and potentially more comfortable for the speaker, holds potential pitfalls in the assumption that the narrator will no longer be nervous with the living person being removed and the cold inanimate judgment of the tape recorder remaining. Yet, if I had gotten an interview with the narrator (which was the case of the monologue) then a monologue might allow the narrator to speak and contradict me in a safer nonconfrontational format. This is a worthy benefit, especially if there were conflicting memories and perspectives of events and places between the interview and the monologue’s account.

I also do no believe I’d want to do the group interview either, but for different reasons. Although the group interview could be more comfortable and allow for womens voices to be presented in a more natural and freeing way, the difficulty of hearing such voices can be a problem. Although the group interview provides a great sense of the group’s relationships and community, as well as still effectively conveying key points if the narrators’ views, it can also lose the particular views and memories of some of the individual members. The group reflection allows for sparked memories to be added to the narrative and a weaving of stories and fragments into a group sense of shared experience. The individual strands and story treads which contribute to the overall weave are visible, but can be lost in the blending of so many stories and threads. I have noticed that some of the quieter narrators in the group interview tend to be overtalked and some individuals with differing perspectives can be ganged up on by more vocal or forceful speakers. Some of the softer spoken narrators can be lost in the midst of background jesting or bombastic laughter. While creating a great sense of the group and allowing a format which sparks recollections, reflections, and additional details to stories, the different individual perspectives and memory of events can be lost in a group interview. Most of this is because the additional details and freedom to jump in create overtalking. More importantly, the round table group interview was so comfortable that it allowed some narrators to jump in late in the recording, or suddenly appear on record when they had silently been participating the whole time. The increase of influencing factors and visual cues present in the round table makes an audio recording confusing to listen to. Without a visual recording included with the audio it is, at times, nearly impossible to know who and what is being talked to or about. Individual interviews with each person would have allowed for much deeper and complete interviews in many ways, esoecially for the more timid speakers. Again, the group interview does provides a sense of the groups memory and also allows for contributions to each other stories by the narrators in ways which cannot be discounted. Yet, without individual interviews, I can’t help but wonder if the stories told by the group are those the quieter members would have told on their own, or if the stronger members of the group, with the best of intentions or without even knowing it, guided the group into a memory distinctly imprinted with their leadership.

LaBudde Special Collections Transcription: Learning to Hear

Today I began two transcriptions which, though similar in focus, couldn’t have resulted in more diverse work experiences.  One was an individual monologue about the gay scene in Kansas City since the 1960s.  The other was a round table discussions of the different experiences of a group of lesbians in Kansas City.  While the monologue flowed fairly smoothly and demanded more focus on grammatical form, due to the narrators use of pauses and vocal delivery, the round table require more nuanced attention.  With frequent interruptions, laughter, and joking among the narrators as they seamlessly flowed off of and into each others conversations, I found myself needing to stop and learn the narrator’s unique voices.  While the first project demanded I try to understand the rhythm and meaning of the narrator’s delivery (to know what should be a period or comma), the other demanded I listen for distinct voice markers.

In both cases I needed to hear the individual quality of the narrator’s voice, but in different ways.  I couldn’t simply type out what I heard.  In the monologue, without first hearing the narrators rhythm and broader topic, I could very easily structure the statements incorrectly.  In the round table interview, the general lack of names being given before speaking and the boisterous free-flow of conversation, left me confused without better context.  Though both required topical context, the round table drove me to become familiar with the voices themselves.  In both transcriptions I needed to start orienting myself a few minutes into the recording, not at the beginning.  This was a new experience compared to those stories I had heard since childhood which start at, you guessed it, the beginning.  I needed to not only hear the rural style to “Pat’s” Midwestern voice as opposed to the higher pitched, New Jersey fast pace of Giselle’s voice; but I also needed to hear the more nuanced differences between the rich tones of Sue’s Davenport voice  and Bev’s Kansas City voice.

The longer I listened, over and over, I started to hear the vocal tones of different laughs and the patterns of different speakers.  I began to become familiar with their voices, to know them.  I began to really hear them.  Sometimes foreign to the historical voices of monographs and journal essays, the recordings brought be into a more challenging and more personal type of history.  It was challenging, disorienting, and a little unsettling.  But it was also beautiful.  The struggle to discover the voices of the historical agents was present, just like in other forms of research, but in new ways.  It wasn’t enough to hear the narrator’s voice, to get their words, but I had to discern their voice for its distinct qualities.  It wasn’t enough to know the words and actions of the historical agent, but what makes them different from other historical agents.  Today was a wonderful example of literally learning to hear the voices of those in the past who I had never heard before, and I can’t wait to hear what they will say next.

LaBudde

GLAMA

Vinyl to World Wide Web

By Kelly Hangauer

I am currently in transition.

Now that the archiving process of the John B. Gage collection is complete, and digital audio files have been made and stored on Missouri University’s server, it is time to move on to a new phase of the project—the public history phase.

logo-horizontal-288pxUsing a free and open source site called Omeka, I will be showcasing the John B. Gage collection online. Omeka is a product of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media and it encourages historians, scholars, archivists, and librarians to publish their work with ease. The product and the ideas behind it are pretty incredible, and I am excited to discover its possibilities!

My current task, and what I have been working on for the past week or so, is to pinpoint the sound clips that will be the most intriguing and representative of the collection. Considering the hours upon hours of material, this is a bit overwhelming. It is slowly coming together, though, and I hope to be uploading material onto the Omeka site very soon.

Image is from the L.P. Cookingham Photo Collection at the LaBudde Special Collections

“Aerial View of City from City Hall, 1942” – Image is from the L.P. Cookingham Photo Collection at LaBudde Special Collections

In addition to the original collection, I will be supplementing the material with pertinent sound bytes from the Arthur B. Church KMBC collection, as well as including images taken mostly from the LaBudde Special Collections at UMKC. This project should give researchers a good taste of what audio they can find on John B. Gage, while also giving casual explorers an interesting insight into Kansas City history.