Veteran StoryCorps superstar Louisa Scioscia Stephens (who has participated in almost 100 interviews) came to the Grand Central StoryBooth today with her student and friend, Aude Lloydna Onanga Ndiaye. Ms. Onanga spoke about her mother, Marie-Stephanie Inquiessi, an extraordinary woman who lives in Libreville, Gabon. Her mother grew up in the small town of Mimongo, a name Ms. Stephens described as sounding like the beautiful sound of “wind blowing through the trees.” When Ms. Inquiessi’s father died, she and her many siblings were left homeless and in dire poverty…

Ms. Inquiessi helped raise all of her siblings, and enroled as one of the first people in her country in the freshman class of Omar Bongo Omdidoa University, Gambon’s first college. She became a nurse, and has spent her life building houses, earning money, and using her talents to help her fellow Africans. Ms. Onanga was clearly in awe of her mother, and appreciated the experience of getting to speak about her to Ms. Stephens.

It is always a joy to facilitate an interview with Ms. Stephens. No one embodies the concept of “Listening as an Act of Love” more than she does. She sits down with her students, friends, family members, and strangers, and listens to each one as if they are the most important person in the world, and that there is nothing more important in the world than to listen to them right then. Her presence with people is nothing less than an incredible act of love. Watching her with her student Ms. Onanga was beautiful.

At the end of their interview, I asked French speaking Ms. Onanaga, who has a voice just as beautiful as her smile, to tell me how one would describe listening as an act of love au Francaise…and she told me, “Ècouter est un acte d’amour.”

Patricia (Pat) Gillespie and her husband Harry (Bud) are both celebrating their 80th birthdays. As a present to them, their daughter made an appointment for them to tell their story in the Grand Central Terminal StoryBooth. All five of their children came to New York City from around the country to celebrate with them, and 18 members of their family watched outside of the both while their granddaughter, Anne Burmeister, represented for the family as the designated interviewer. Eighteen members of a family at once is a new record for StoryCorps. Thank you, Gillespie family, for choosing to spend your milestone birthday with us!

Mr. Davis was interviewed by his friend, Timothy L. Russell. He was on the stage at Mason Temple when King gave the “I Have Been to the Mountaintop”
speech. He recalled how Ralph Abernathy wanted to preach, but the crowd
was too impatient for him. Mr. Davis also recalled a little known detail about that fateful evening, that Stokely Carmichael also spoke very briefly before Dr. King, raising his right fist in the air in the symbol of Black Power.

Then, when King spoke, Mr. Davis watched him deliver the 4,411 word speech, in his sonorous voice…without a single note.

Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Davis was in a secret meeting at the Clarridge Motel trying to end the Sanitation Workers’ Strike, when word came in that Dr. King had been shot. “I will never forget the scene in that room,” Mr. Davis recalled, when he felt the Civil Rights movement come apart, and felt himself come apart.

Rev. Netters was interviewed by Felicia Jones, a member of his church who wanted to honor him as a community Griot. Rev. Netters was also with Dr. King in those final days. He marched in the second line of a march supporting the Sanitation Workers (which Dr. King refers to in his speech). When a group called The Invaders broke some windows, the police tear gassed the marchers. Rev. Netters described falling to the ground, and how two high school kids threw their bodies over him to protect him from the ensuing stampede. The kids tried to tell the police that they were threatening a member of the City Council, but they still threatened to kill him. Rev. Netters said being on the ground, tear gassed, and fearing being trampled or having the police kill him was one of the worst moments of his life.

The day Dr. King was killed, he was in the same meeting with Mr. Davis. The black
members had gotten enough votes, and the City Council was going to override the mayor to end the strike and help the sanitation workers. When word came in King had been killed, three white council members said they had to change their votes, because their constituents would feel like they’d capitulated just because King had been killed. Rev. Netters said, “Thirty minutes before he died, what Martin Luther King
had come to Memphis to accomplish HAD BEEN accomplished…and he never knew…it broke my heart.”

Griot Door-to-Door’s first stop in Ole’ Miss was Vicksburg. The Confederate flag greets you as you enter this historic Civil War city. With generous help from Ms. Yolande Robbins (center), founder of The Jacqueline House, we fearlessly forged ahead – collecting many stories and histories from this slowly evolving town.

The stop was Clark Griswold-ish in length, but it was well worth taking a moment from the 2,000+ mile trip from Oakland, CA to Vicksburg, MS.