On Wednesday, June 22 StoryCorps Atlanta fans gathered for our second annual “StoryCorps Out & OutLoud: A Celebration of Stories from the LGBTQ Community.”  The evening’s host, WABE’s John Lemley, commented that despite moving to a larger venue, the event was once again standing room only.

Kerrie Cotton Williams, Archivist and Manager of the Archives Division at the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History and StoryCorps alumna discussed the importance of archiving our stories.

Read the rest of this entry »

The week of November 7-13, 2010, was Gay Pride week on the campus of Spelman College – one of Atlanta’s five HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities) that comprise the Atlanta University Center (AUC).  And while Spelman sponsors the Pride activities, students from the other four institutions (Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, Morris Brown College and the Interdenominational Theological Center) are invited to participate.  Spelman openly celebrates the lives and accomplishments of its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and questioning (LGBTQIQ) students.

Read the rest of this entry »

November 16, 2010 was the one-year anniversary of the first StoryCorps Atlanta broadcast on WABE’s City Café. To mark the occasion, we invited Atlanta Alumni and Community Partners to celebrate our first anniversary. Fittingly, John Lemley, the host of WABE’s City Café, was the MC for the evening.

The evening began with opening remarks by John Weatherford, Chief Operating Officer of WABE, and a special message from Dave Isay, Founder and Executive Director of StoryCorps.

We listened to several StoryCorps Atlanta stories that evening, starting with the very first story that aired a year ago, a conversation between mother and daughter, Joyce and Errin Haines.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday, September 25, the StoryCorps Atlanta team packed up its equipment and headed to the heart of downtown Atlanta to the  second annual Neighborhood Summit. The event, a program by the Civic League for Regional Atlanta sponsored by the United Way and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, had the theme “Neighborhood Connections, Regional Voices.”

Throughout the day, Summit attendees sat in on workshops that focused on topics ranging from communities using social media technology to organize themselves, to learning about a new plan that, according to the organization’s website, “will determine how the region accommodates population and economic growth sustainability over the next 30 years.”  Heady stuff to be sure!

Read the rest of this entry »

In May, StoryCorps Atlanta Facilitator, Katrina Singh and I spent a day at the Side by Side Brain Injury Clubhouse. The clubhouse, in Stone Mountain, GA, is a place where people living with the lifelong effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) are respected and valued as contributing community members. Members practice life skills such as cooking, counting money and answering the phone.

Members and their caretakers recorded their stories  Although the members can’t remember the details of their accidents, they clearly remembered their lives before the accident.

Husband and wife Bisi and Deborah Alabi immigrated to the U.S. from Nigeria. They were on the way back from a family friend’s college graduation, when they skidded on ice.  After the crash,  Deborah, a nurse, could tell that her husband was alive, though badly injured. Now years later, they talked about how happy they are. Bisi can’t work due to his traumatic brain injury, but that seems quite alright with his wife. Before the accident, he worked three jobs as a pharmacist (a day job, a night job and one on the weekends). Now he spends more time at home with his family. Since he volunteers in the kitchen at Side by Side, he’s started helping his wife out in their kitchen (something he never did before the accident). And every day he Skypes with his grandchildren in Las Vegas.

Read the rest of this entry »

On October 18, 2010, Atlanta StoryCorps staff as well as radio station WABE (90.1) President & CEO Milton Clipper and COO John Weatherford, were proud recipients of a Proclamation initiated by Councilman Hall.  During the brief ceremony, Mr. Clipper spoke highly of the work that StoryCorps Atlanta has accomplished during its first year and of the strong partnership between the two organizations. StoryCorps Atlanta Site Supervisor, Amanda Plumb, talked about the many community partners cultivated over the past year and our outreach work with homeless and refugee populations, African Americans, Latinos, members of the LGBTQ community and seniors.  With all that, however, she also focused on the work yet to do and the communities yet to be reached, and encouraged the Council Members to invite their constituents to tell their stories.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sagal Radio Services is a nonprofit that broadcasts weekly radio programs aimed at immigrant communities.  Their programs, broadcast in 5 different languages, providing information to help newcomers adapt to life in the United States.

Hear Me Today: The Voice of Today’s Teens is a Sagal Radio Services program created by Clarkston high school students who intern with the International Rescue Committee over the summer.

This summer, I visited Sagal Radio Services, where interns, Nawal Abdirahman from Somalia and Ram Koirala and Tara Powdyal from Nepal interviewed me about StoryCorps. After my time in the hot seat, I invited them to return the favor and visit us at the WABE studios to learn how we create StoryCorps. They toured the Atlanta StoryBooth, met WABE on-air personalities, asked questions of the News Director, Michael Fields, and saw how producer, Kate Sweeney edits a story.

Read the rest of this entry »

In 2010, HIV/AIDS is not as scary a diagnosis as it was in the early- and mid-eighties.  Now, almost thirty years since the disease first became part of the public lexicon, HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence.  In late-August, StoryCorps Atlanta partnered with Positive Impact to record stories of individuals living with and/or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Trevalle Ambrose arrived early for his conversation with Positive Impact group facilitator Rico Curtis-Davidson.  He found out he was HIV positive on his 21st birthday.  When he told his family that he was positive they, in his words, “just cut me off.”   One year later, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his best friend, Devin Murphy.  Three days after they arrived, Devin died.  Trevalle was alone in a new city, grieving the loss of his friend and estranged from his family.  With the help of Devin’s brother, Trevalle found the medical resources he needed.  His spiritual journey, though, had just begun.  Trevalle would face numerous illnesses – many life-threatening – battle drug addiction, and fight to regain his family’s love and respect.  Looking back, Trevalle says, “I was a mess.  I was a lost soul.”

Read the rest of this entry »

When I tell people that I work for StoryCorps, many people mention a parent or grandparent they wish they had interviewed before they passed, which is one of the many reasons we are so excited that we’re partnering with Ruth and Naomi Senior Outreach in Birmingham, AL.

Chaplains Mary McQueen Porter and Lynn Bledsoe visit isolated elders to sing, play harp, and provide human and canine companionship. In their own way, they exemplify the StoryCorps motto, “listening as an act of love.”

Mary and Lynn are now incorporating StoryCorps interviews into their senior outreach visits. To date, they have recorded over a dozen interviews with elders using a StoryKit.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not very often that homeless men and women are given a stage to tell their own stories. But that’s exactly what happened when artist/teacher Polly Garcia approached Atlanta Outreach Project’s about creating Life Without Walls.

Atlanta Outreach Project provides innovative solutions to ending homelessness in collaboration with other agencies. Life Without Walls project was a 10-week writing and theater workshop designed to teach and improve writing and artistic skills. In the workshops, individuals who are or have been homeless were guided through an artistic process in which they created poems and scenes based on their own stories. As part of the process, they used a StoryKit to interview each other and tell their stories.

Their hard work was on display this past weekend, as they performed Life Without Walls to packed audiences at the Little 5 Points Community Center. The members of the ensemble, Murray, Scotty, Tracy and William, each directed an act based on their life and then told their story, often incorporating poetry.  After the performance, the audience had an opportunity to ask questions and share their thoughts about the performance.

StoryCorps Atlanta is proud to have played a small part in this process. And long after the applause has faded from the performance, their stories will live on in the StoryCorps archives at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian for African American History and Culture.