StoryCorps Atlanta had the pleasure of hosting students from Girls Inc., a national youth leadership organization dedicated to providing girls a safe space and after-school activities. Girls Inc. of Greater Atlanta serves over 3,000 girls, aged six to eighteen, with outreach programs, after-school and summer camp programs, and community partnerships throughout the metro area.  Their mission: to inspire all girls to be strong, smart, and bold.

Three middle school students embodying these qualities visited our recording booth for the first time. In addition to helping our visitors record stories, StoryCorps volunteer Amelia Bower and I led the girls in listening and storytelling games and gave them a tour of the WABE/PBA studios to meet the staff and learn how public radio and television work. Although uncertain about what to expect, the girls jumped into recording with enthusiasm and curiosity.

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Since November 2010, Lambda Legal has partnered with StoryCorps Atlanta to collect the stories of trans and gender non-conforming individuals, people who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. To date, 20 people have shared their stories through Lambda Legal’s Trans Tell Your Story Project.

Holiday Simmons, Lambda Legal’s national community educator, travels the country to inform people of LGBTQ issues.  In his trainings for law enforcement officers, healthcare providers, and teachers, he uses audio from the Trans Tell Your Story Project to bring voices of trans and gender non-conforming individuals into each session.

Lambda Legal recently hosted an event to share some of the stories they’ve collected and to encourage others to share their own. After listening to excerpts from the conversations, A.J. Jones, the project’s coordinator, invited  several participants to share their experiences of recording their stories.

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This year, Friendship Baptist Church celebrates its 150th anniversary, and the anniversary committee has been hard at work on sesquicentennial plans, including helping church members pronounce the word that means “150th anniversary.”

The church has come far since its humble beginnings in 1862, when congregants met in a boxcar because they did not have funds to buy land. Both Morehouse and Spelman Colleges held their first classes at Friendship. And Atlanta’s first African-American mayor, Maynard H. Jackson, Jr., was not only raised in the church; his father was one of only six pastors who have served the community in its history.

Many of the church elders remember all of the pastors except the very first, Reverend Frank Quareles, who served until 1881. One important event  for the anniversary committee will be the dedication of new tombstones for Reverend Quarles and his wife, whose unmarked graves were discovered at Atlanta’s historic Oakland Cemetery.

The anniversary committee  is also collecting oral histories of the church, and Vanessa Brown, a member of the Anniversary Committee, invited church elders to record their memories of Friendship Baptist Church and its leaders with StoryCorps Atlanta.  Read the rest of this entry »

To wrap up Black History Month, Monica Foderingham, Outreach Services Librarian for Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, created the Letters To My Grandchildren Project.  In partnership with Senior Citizen Services of Merto Atlanta and StoryCorps Atlanta, conversations of African Americans who grew up during segregation and the Civil Rights Movement were recorded for posterity.

On February 28, 100 seniors from Auburn Senior Center, Dogwood Senior Center, Northside Shepherd Senior Center, Southeast Center, and New Horizon Senior Center gathered at the central library to hear twelve storytellers share their experiences.

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Before there was the written word, there were oral storytellers, and  StoryCorps Atlanta had the pleasure of recording conversations at the National Black Storytelling Conference and Festival held in Atlanta, Georgia.

This recording day was phenomenal.  It was an honor to hear amazing stories by professional storytellers and to hear these professionals share the ordinary stories of their lives, the raw human material that StoryCorps knows all too well that has inspired them to make storytelling a way of life. Below are a few highlights.

Barbara Eady (l) and Jacqueline Boyd (r)

Barbara Eady and Jacqueline Boyd, both from Ohio, discussed how they began storytelling. Barbara shared a poignant story about an elder mother in her church, who knew her as a child and remembered her many years later when Barbara brought her own children to Sunday service.  The elder’s detailed memories of Barbara as a child touched her and has encouraged her work. Today, Barbara is a living vessel of memory and history.

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Have you ever heard of the mahasi?  What about the clip grip or the rotary creel?  These and other unique inventions sprang from the mind of Hans Simon Singer, a weaver who moved from Wattwil, Switzerland to the United States in the early 1960′s.  He rapidly established himself in the textile industry around Spartanburg, South Carolina, but his most important legacy is the love and family that is still strong today.

Aside from textiles, Hans leaves his legacy in three daughters, all now in their 50′s: Lynmarie Singer Storey is the oldest; Monica Singer Franklin is the middle child; and Susan Singer is the youngest of the family. The sisters met at the Atlanta StoryBooth in November 2011 to mark the 20th anniversary of their father’s death and share their favorite memories of him.

Monica, Lynmarie, and Susan Singer at StoryCorps Atlanta

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StoryCorps Atlanta set up recording equipment at the Michael A. Grant Boys and Girls Club in Austell, Georgia to record conversations between young men, their families, and mentors through 100 Black Men of North Metro, Inc.

Today, the dropout rate for African-American boys in urban environments can be as high as seventy percent, and more African-American men are incarcerated or in the criminal justice system than were enslaved in 1850. With this in mind, 100 Black Men of America’s national chapters serve a vital role in the African-American community, helping families navigate the challenges posed by neighborhoods burdened with drugs, crime, and scarce resources.

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Earlier this year, StoryCorps Atlanta headed to the Mainstreet Community Services Association, Inc. to record the conversations of residents who have staked out their piece of the Mainstreet Community legacy. Community Association Manager Nadine Rivers-Johnson organized a successful on-site recording day in the community’s clubhouse, rolling out the red carpet for the StoryCorps team.

Located less than five miles from the historic Stone Mountain Park, Dekalb County’s Mainstreet Community is a residential community that was developed based on the tenets of the Greenpeace Movement of the early 1970′s.  Today, the Mainstreet Community vigorously guards its proud heritage even as it charts a new path into the twenty-first century.

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On the eve of the fifteenth anniversary of Atlanta’s Black Gay Pride weekend, StoryCorps Atlanta partnered with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History to host, Pride and Community: Preserving the Black LGBTQ Experience.  Since opening its recording booth in Atlanta two years ago, StoryCorps Atlanta has captured and archived hundreds of stories from the African-American community, and many of the participants who have come into the booth are lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender or queer.  This evening was an opportunity to celebrate the lives and stories of Atlanta’s Black LGBTQ community and discuss why it’s important for its members to preserve their stories.

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When Hillery Rink booked a StoryCorps appointment to talk with his partner Sean Rindge about how they met, little did he know that the two would help StoryCorps Atlanta mark an important occasion, also:  the 1,000^th interview in our booth at WABE.

Hillery had two strong reasons for wanting to visit StoryCorps.  “I wanted to document some of our stories for us to have when we got older and our memories started getting foggy.  I also felt it was important for people to hear that how two gay men met and started their life-long relationship isn’t that different from how millions of straight people do the same thing.”

Sean, his partner, told us, “I was intrigued, albeit a bit hesitant, by Hillery’s suggestion to do the interview.  I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to talk for the full length of the time, but we know how that turned out.”  The pair talked for 40 minutes and covered events from just their first few years together.

Hillery Rink and partner Sean Rindge have been together for more than 20 years.

Sean had made personal recordings of his grandmother several years ago, and “the response from the family who got recorded copies of our talk was overwhelming.”  This time, too, family and friends have requested copies of their StoryCorps CD, which Hillery and Sean plan to share.  Says Sean, “It really is true that everyone has something to say, and it isn’t just our established writers who should have a lock on it.”  Hillery adds, “In this sometimes contentious culture we live in now, I think it is important to remind each other of how we all are much more alike than we are different.  StoryCorps is a great way for us to spread that word.”