In 83 years Callye Fears Chatman’s life has undergone dramatic changes. From her beginnings as the daughter of sharecroppers (“It was my job to carry water to the workers and to ring the dinner bell”), to her educational journey at Clark College in Atlanta, to her work as an educator, to her and her husband’s decision to move their family to a white suburb so their children could attend better schools, Mrs. Chatman witnessed the social, economic, and political changes that shaped the South in the 20^th century. Yet, when Mrs. Chatman and her daughter, Faye Capers, participated in the StoryCorps Memory Loss Initiative, Mrs. Chatman did not come to talk about the social and political changes she had lived through. Instead, she wanted most to talk about her mother, who had died a month earlier at age 103.

“It was a true blessing to have five generations and everybody able to communicate with each other,” says Mrs. Chatman of her life with her mother, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. When Faye asked what Mrs. Chatman would write in a letter to her mother, the words sprang forth immediately:

“Dear Mom, how are you doing with the saints up in heaven? I know you are still singing, especially your favorite song,  ‘How Great Thou Art.’ We really miss you, but we know you are there with the rest of your family, your eight siblings, your mother and father, and all your friends who passed on before you. So we are looking forward to joining you as well.”

March 7, 1965. It’s been almost 45 years since Amelia Boynton Robinson was beaten and tear gassed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. She was attempting, along with up to 600 other marchers, to cross the bridge from Selma to Montgomery to protest the earlier shooting of a protestor, as well as advocate for voting rights for Selma’s Black citizens. Now, approaching 99 years of age, Mrs. Boynton Robinson and her friend, Genise Kemp-Brown, came to the Atlanta StoryCorps recording day at the Auburn Avenue Research Library to tell Mrs. Boynton Robinson’s story of courage, determination, and eventual triumph.

“The air was thick with tear gas,” Mrs. Boynton Robinson remembers of the Sunday that became known as ‘Bloody Sunday.’ She said she was gassed so much that almost 45  years later her throat still burns. Front-page pictures the day after the march show Mrs. Boynton Robinson lying unconscious on the bridge. When she woke up  in the hospital the next day, Mrs. Boynton Robinson resolved, “I’m going to fight more than I ever [have].”

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The Atlanta StoryCorps team conducted outreach recordings at WONDERroot, a community arts organization in Reynoldstown, an Atlanta neighborhood. Along with facilitator Lola Ibitoye, I had the pleasure of recording a few of the young people involved with WONDERroot and the Atlanta arts community.

A few weeks later, we were invited back to WONDERroot to participate in Raising All Youth Voices, a youth media night. The event was a collaboration between WONDERroot, VOX Teen Newspaper, Fuel Media, and StoryCorps. The event showcased the amazing work of teens in the Atlanta area. These phenomenal teens wowed the audience with a variety of talents which included a spicy salsa dance routine, sensational spoken word presentations, and a live band. VOX, the teen newspaper, had a very strong presence in the evening’s events and distributed their periodicals to all the guests.

Among the food, mingling, and fun, guests were encouraged to visit the many stations set up throughout the Center. One included television feeds that featured debates that many of the teens had recorded with local Atlanta television channels. Another station aired video footage the teens had produced and recorded themselves. StoryCorps set up a listening booth inside WONDERroot’s recording studio. The booth generated so much interest that many of the teens asked if they could volunteer with StoryCorps in the future!

The VOX teens took a special interest in our presence that evening and interviewed Lola and I about StoryCorps and our work with youth and the Atlanta community. Overall, the evening was a wonderful opportunity to witness the depth of these young peoples’ talents and the power of the teen voice.

Two of the most memorable interviews we’ve recorded so far in Atlanta were with two of our youngest participants: eleven-year-old Danielle Dinberg and nine-year-old Noah Jernigan.

Danielle and her mother, Carolyn Dinberg, came to the Atlanta StoryBooth to record a conversation about Danielle’s unbridled equine love.

“She would rather muck stables than clean her room,” is how Carolyn laughingly describes her daughter. Danielle agreed and said she even likes the smell of a barn, including horse manure, because that means horses are around.

With such passion comes the risk of heartache. Danielle experienced this early when her pony, Cocoa Puff, developed cancer and died. “She spent two hours saying good-bye to him,” Carolyn remembers. After Cocoa Puff’s death, Danielle stopped riding and helped children with disabilities learn to ride horses through hippotherapy.

Two of Danielle’s major life lessons – patience and responsibility – came to her via her four-footed friends. Cocoa Puff helped her slow down and not rush things. Danielle says that when she cannot be with a horse, sketching a horse helps calm her down. She says she “feels” the horses as she sketches them.

While young Danielle’s passion is horses, Noah Jernigan’s passion is of a different kind: he loves all things NPR. Although he cannot get his driver’s license for another six years, Car Talk is Noah’s favorite program. The StoryCorps segments on Morning Edition are a close second.

Noah brought his grandfather, Bill Mays, to the StoryBooth to learn more about his grandfather’s military service, his marriage, his role as a parent, and what it means to be a grandfather. Bill, who says he has experienced seven wars in his lifetime, recalls how he slowly realized, “war is not the answer.” After their StoryBooth conversation, Site Supervisor Amanda Plumb took Noah and his family on an impromptu station tour, where Noah met several WABE hosts and chatted with station general manager, John Weatherford.

At 7:30a.m. on a crisp, fall Atlanta morning, the Atlanta StoryCorps team left the StoryBooth and traveled some 40 miles north on I-75 to Woodstock (no, not New York) Georgia. Although the trip was somewhat shorter than anticipated, 40 miles in any direction from Atlanta plops one squarely in the sticks!  In this case, we were in the north Georgia mountains. The air was drier, much cooler (actually, cold) and the sunlight seemed brighter. As we left the main road and followed the smaller one that would take us to the dining hall of the Cherokee Outdoor Family YMCA, it was clear that this was not going to be a typical recording day.

Our participants today were in the Atlanta area attending the Speak OUT Camp sponsored by COLAGE. COLAGE is “the only national, youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer parents.” Today’s recording booth was a converted sleeping cabin–rustic, worn, dimly lit and cold. My very first participants, Miranda, 22, and Cara, 19, had only met the night before at the airport. They talked about their gay dads. Both women have fathers whom had been married to women but later admitted to themselves that they were gay or bisexual; thus decided to end their traditional marriages.

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On Monday, November 23, five Brownies from Troop 565 of Newnan, Georgia visited StoryCorps Atlanta to prepare for the National Day of Listening. Ava, Chloe, Angelina, Carly and Annalie started their visit with a tour of the WABE and PBA studios where they met a number of Atlanta celebrities: Alicia Steele, Steve Goss, Rose Scott, John Weatherford, Lois Reitzes, and John Lemley. The scouts got to listen in as Lois mentioned their troop’s visit on air. The scouts had a chance to visit the Atlanta StoryBooth where they talked into the mics and learned how the facilitators adjust the sound. “I loved learning how to use the microphones!” says Annalie Harris.

After seeing the studios, the girls learned about StoryCorps and the National Day of Listening. They listened to StoryCorps clips and talked about the importance of listening as an act of love. The girls decided who in their in their family they’d like to interview for the National Day of Listening, the day after Thanksgiving. By interviewing a family member, the girls will earn the Her Story patch. “We really learned to listen to each other,” says Angelina Capponi.

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As the Atlanta StoryCorps team settles in our new home at WABE, we want to make sure to thank WABE for their hospitality. We have been welcomed by all WABE staff – from the General Manager John Weatherford, who gave us a personal tour of the station, to the Director of New Media Wayne Sharpe, who participated in a StoryCorps interview, to the lovely front desk staff person, Jeanine Osborne, who happily buzzed us in the front door every day. Whether the topic is football (WABE has its own league), the best way to prepare stew (”never let it boil!”), or participating in our Friends and Family week (”yeah, sure, I’ll sign up for an interview slot”), our new hosts have been engaged, hospitable, and eager to make sure our needs are met.

The Atlanta StoryCorps audience has also been welcoming. Our first month of interview slots were filled within 48 hours. To make sure the city is even more attuned to our work here, WABE will air selected Atlanta StoryBooth interviews on their program City Café.

Thank you, WABE, for your gracious hospitality! Thanks also for the “conversations of a lunchtime” that you helped provide during our training weeks!

Today was our first day of recording at our newest StoryBooth in Atlanta, Georgia!

Everyone at StoryCorps is excited to have a StoryBooth in the South, especially the Atlanta team: Lillie Love, Anthony Knight, Lola Ibitoye, Katrina Singh, and me! We are thrilled to be recording and preserving the stories of the South for our nation and future generations to hear. And we are very grateful to 90.1 WABE for hosting us for our first year in Atlanta.

Anthony, Lola, Lillie, Katrina, Amanda

We spent two weeks training and learning the ins and outs of StoryCorps. We learned how to record stories and archive them for the Library of Congress.

Katrina, Lillie, Lola and Anthony practice recording

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