StoryCorps is a “one of a kind” oral history project and sometimes our participants come up with unique and fun ways to describe what we do. We’ve heard “relationship builder,” “new-age museum,” and even “unique date night.”

Ana Maria and Mario Martinez, however, have labeled StoryCorps “the time capsule,” a snapshot in time or the capture of the essence of a moment to be preserved for discovery in the future. At StoryCorps, the couple excitedly chatted about their sweet 11-month old baby girl, Lily. Their plan is to preserve the CD and play it for Lilly on her 18^th birthday.

Ana Maria Martinez (l) and her husband Mario Martinez (r) smile for their StoryCorps photo.

“We might be the only people who know what we are going to be doing on Nov 28, 2030,” jokes Ana Maria Martinez. “This is just so special to us and I know it’s going to be surreal to listen to our emotions and thoughts after 18 years have passed.” Listen to a portion of Ana Maria’s story here!

Similarly, Kendall Brown jokes, “I will come to StoryCorps as long as it will have [me]!” The three-time StoryCorps veteran comes to StoryCorps Atlanta every year during the same month as a way to document his year-to-year journey. Kendall listens to the previous year’s CD right before coming in to record his next story.

Kendall Brown after his 4th StoryCorps interview.

“I was adopted so I feel like I had to create my own history,” says Kendall. “StoryCorps offers me a way to do that and to remember what I’ve learned in a year’s time.” Listen to Kendall’s story here!

We want to YOU to have your own unique way to describe StoryCorps! Book an appointment today. Call our reservation line at 800-850-4406.

Major Amy McGrath

As part of StoryCorps ongoing Military Voices Iniative and in partnership with The Service Project, participants Major Amy McGrath and Major Tegan Owen talk about being Marines and one of the first women in combat (McGrath).

She recalls watching a documentary as a 12 year old girl in Kentucky that inspired her to fly air craft carrier fighter jets. There McGrath’s journey began. There were obstacles. After learning of the combat exclusion law she wrote letters to her local congressman, senator and house armed services committee members, asking them to change the law so that she could fulfill her dream to be a fighter pilot. None of them said she could be a pilot, one said there were a lot of other jobs in the military that she could pursue, perhaps nursing. The dream carried her to the Naval Academy. Good fortune followed McGrath there. At the end of 1993 congress repealed the combat exclusion law, opening many of the jobs that had previously excluded women. After graduation from the academy, she was commissioned as a Marine and began flight school. She became the first woman Marine aviator to fly in Afghanistan.

“A lot of people ask me if it’s harder being a woman flying? I don’t think it is. I just try to take it in stride”.

She continued, “what the guys were looking for is ‘what does she do when she fails?’ Once they found out that I’m gonna pick up and learn from that mistake and move on and do better next time, they were ok. There is pressure but you just have to know about it and deal with it”.

In early February, Door-to-Door escaped winter in New York City and went to record interviews with the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, Florida. The museum was a 2012 recipient of a national medal from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Through the interviews, we got a look at the many wonderful aspects of the museum’s programming. From artists to volunteers; educators to musicians; and students to curators, we heard about how MOCA has worked to make contemporary art accessible for people across Miami.

On our last morning, Jill Hernandez and Anya Wallace, good friends and coworkers, came in to talk about their role in Women on the Rise. As a young woman and art student, Jill had become passionate about feminist art, at one point making a film about the experiences of women in Miami. After graduating from college, she went to work at MOCA. One morning, Jill heard a story on the radio about an increase in the number of young women being detained in juvenile justice centers, and decided that she wanted to start doing programming at some of those centers.

As Jill began going to the detention centers, she was nervous, because she didn’t have a clear-cut plan or agenda. However, “things just happened” as she started to meet the young women there and talk about the artists whose work she would present to them. Their reactions, she says, were the best part, as the girls were bringing a wide range of experiences to their readings of the images. She remembers that the conversations they had “not only showed me what the art could teach the girls, but how the girls challenged what the work is, or what I think about what the work is.” The second year of the program, they received a grant from the Women’s Fund Network, and it began to take off.

Jill Hernandez and Anya Wallace

Jill and Anya met later, at a Women’s Studies conference, and found instant friendship. Anya had been working with young women in Savannah, Georgia, and remembered feeling that their meeting was serendipitous. Anya was also surprised by finding someone who shared her feminist perspective “not just on working with girls, but how we connect with them.” Shortly after meeting, Jill offered Anya a position at Women on the Rise. When they began to talk about their favorite memories from their work at the program, it turned out they shared quite a few. Reflecting on their work, Jill said, “I know it feels good to write something. I know it feels good to make something. I want to give girls a space and a reason to do that.”

Allyson Robinson (L) and her wife, Danyelle (R), at the Human Rights Campaign Headquarters in Washington, DC

As part of our ongoing Military Voices Initiative, StoryCorps Door-to-Door traveled to the Human Rights Campaign Headquarters in Washington, DC to record stories in partnership with the Military Partners and Families Coalition (MPFC), a non-profit that provides support, advocacy, education and outreach for partners and children of LGBT service members — including families of service members on active duty, in the reserves, national guard, and veterans.

During our stay in DC, I met Allyson Robinson, who came to StoryCorps with her wife Danyelle and shared her story of coming out as a transgender woman and, in her own words, eventually living a life with honesty reflecting who she truly is.

Allyson, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, spoke about having to suppress her feelings of who she really was throughout her Military career. During her time at West Point, she said she was in denial and would overwork to suppress her needs to express herself as a woman and felt guilty whenever she did. “I lied and I hid a lot. I kept a suitcase inside another suitcase in a a trunk room at West Point where I would keep some clothes and make up,” she said.

Allyson spoke about contemplating suicide as the only way out before realizing she had to “live life with honesty, quit fighting and just be,” she added. This is when she decided to come out to her wife, who she was married to since 1994, and their four children.

Her wife, Danyelle, talked about what went through her mind as her then husband came out to her as a transgender woman. ” I remember being bewildered and knowing it was better to know, but at that point I didn’t know what it meant. There were questions out there that I didn’t know”.

Danyelle said she admired Allyson’s honesty and stood by her side. “I let time work through all of the questions and details.” She explained how their four kids were accepting and how easy they took it. “They were wonderful, they were the easiest part.”

Allyson explained what she feared the most through the years, which was to lose her family, did not happen after she came out and how glad she is of it. She took the opportunity to thank her wife for sticking by her side throughout the difficult transition.

In 2012, after serving four years as first Deputy Director for Employee Programs at Human Rights Campaign, Allyson Robinson became the executive director of OutServe-SLDN, a leading advocacy organization serving active-duty LGBT members of the military and veterans. She lives in Maryland with her wife and four children.

StoryCorps met Leslie Salazar and Bill Sears during a recording trip to Los Angeles, California. Leslie and Bill met at Cedar’s Sinai Medical Center when Bill, a cardiac patient liaison , formed a friendship with Ruben Salazar, Leslie’s father. Leslie and Bill came to StoryCorps to remember Ruben’s life and his final moments.

Bill Sears and Leslie Salazar

Leslie reflected on Ruben’s life and the legacy he leaves behind for his family.

“My dad was a phenomenal man, the son of a immigrant father. My dad created everything on his own, from the time he was 18 he had nothing. He broke a cycle of drug addiction, alcoholism and gang violence and created an amazing family tree that will continue to flourish.”

“You also told me how he sang in the desert at nighttime.” Bill spent a lot of time with Ruben in his room, listening to stories of his military service and career as an air-traffic controller. Bill became an adopted member of Ruben’s family, learning about the family’s traditions.

“That’s the one thing I miss, he would play guitar and ukelele.” Leslie recalled, “he taught us all Mexican Folk songs.”

Ruben Salazar

Ruben passed away at Cedar Sinai medical center and the family guided him through his last moments, being present as he took his last breathe. Leslie and her family sang Ruben’s folk songs in the hospital after his passing and later had a bonfire and send off for him on his favorite beach in California.

“I think if your dad was looking down he’d say wow, how proud he is of you.”

“I think he is very proud of his family”

Though it was the difficulty of losing that brought Leslie and Bill together, their friendship remains strong and they continue to bond over the memories they share.

StoryCorps Legacy provides people of all ages with serious illness and their families the opportunity to record, preserve and share their stories.

It has been an exciting semester for Wendy Adams’ service learning oral history class at The College of Central Florida. The course focused on the art of storytelling, and Wendy used the StoryCorps’ motto, “listening is an act of love,” as the backdrop for their studies.

After practicing with mini-recording sessions in the classroom, ten students, along with Wendy, traveled nearly 6 hours to StoryCorps Atlanta in order to record their own StoryCorps interviews.

College of Central Florida students smile in front of the StoryCorps Atlanta photo wall.

“The StoryCorps’ experience enhanced my understanding of my friend Daniel, whom I interviewed. I learned that we have so much in common,” said student Nicole Gomez.

Upon returning to Florida, the students wrote about their experiences for a final assignment. One student provided this insightful reflection:

“I always remind people that I have a horrible memory. That if you tell me something, or want me to do something you need to have me write it down and remind me or I will forget, but when I walked into that soundproof room at StoryCorps, I proved myself wrong. The memories just started to flow, straight from my photographic memory almost playing out like a movie in my head.”

Thanks College of Central Florida for the visit!

From January 27-29, more than 3,400 people filed into Hilton Atlanta to attend The 25^th National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Creating Change Conference. StoryCorps Atlanta was represented among the hustle and bustle as LGBTQ advocates and their families stopped by our makeshift space to record amazing stories of courage, love, and hopes for the future.

The conference was particularly special because it also marked the 40^th anniversary of the large nonprofit, offering some participants the chance to reminisce on how far their cause has come in recent years. Pat Hussain, an Atlanta native, grew up during the Civil Rights movement and reminisced on a time when she felt unaccepted as an African American lesbian woman. After witnessing a Black youth being doused with hot coffee in the 1960′s during a sit in at a lunch counter, she fled out of fear of being unable to remain non-violent.

Pat Hussain smiles after her interview.

“Everything went red because I wasn’t feeling non-violent,” she tells her longtime friend, Pam McMichael. “I left, and I was so ashamed of myself.”

During a 1990 LGBTQ-people of color rally, she recalls a long line of KKK members yelling obscenities to her and her cohorts. This time she would stand her ground.

“I thought here I was back at that lunch counter,”says McMichael. “I was finally ready for nonviolence. I did what I could, when I could.”
Listen to Pat’s story here!

Julie Childs, the executive assistant to the Task Force’s executive director, used her 40-minute recording to chat with Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls.

Julie Childs (l) and Amy Ray (r) at the Creating Change Conference 2013.

“Amy and I have worked on activist projects in the queer movement for nearly 16 years, but I feel like the storytelling session enriched and deepened our connection both professionally and personally,” says Julie. “I feel like I had become somewhat complacent, but spending an hour with StoryCorps and Amy has stoked my inner flame.” Read more about Amy’s StoryCorps experience here!

When Kimberly Fierra enters a room, her smile precedes her. The bubbly 18-year old came to StoryCorps Atlanta decked out in 6-inch heels, flowing brown hair, and a proud sash that read “Miss Teen GA Latina.” All that was missing was the crown.

As part of StoryCorps’s Historias Initiative, a project which aims to record, share and preserve the stories of Latinos in the United States, StoryCorps Atlanta is partnering with the Miss GA Latina Pageant. Kimberly came in with her friend, Karla Figueroa, to chat about the fascinating world of sashes and crowns.

“Let me tell you– pageants look so easy, but they’re not,” half-jokes Sierra before reflecting. “I can’t believe that I’m representing Latino Americans in the state of Georgia…I want girls to look at me and see that they can do it, too.”

Kimberly Fierra is Miss Teen GA Latina 2012-2013.

In addition to representing her community through public speaking engagements and events, Kimberly is also battling the skin disease Vitiligo, which causes her to have white dots on her hands, arms, and hair.

“To be honest, it’s very hard for me, especially since [the Vitiligo] has gotten in my hair,” says Sierra. “It can cause my hair to become white.”

According to the Miss GA Latina Pageant director, Erika Mitchell, StoryCorps is giving the contestants like Kimberly a chance to practice telling their story. The contestants will have to communicate their personal narratives on stage or when speaking to a class of excited elementary school students.

“This is going to be a really great thing for our girls.” Says Erika. “Their narratives are unique and important and worthy of being shared.”

You can listen to a portion of Kimberly’s story online here!

Want your organization to partner with StoryCorps Atlanta? Visit www.storycorps.org to learn more about us.

After weeks of anticipation and excitement, Luis and I arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska in early October. KUAC, Alaska’s public radio station, was celebrating its 50^th anniversary and invited participants to come and share their Alaskan stories.

After hours and hours of travel, we made it to the Denali Center, a local nursing home that would be our recording location for the week. Much to our delight, we found that we would be setting up our paperwork and greeting station in the barber shop. For the next five days, we had a steady stream of participants come into the barber shop (along with a few people looking for haircuts!), each with a unique story. Participants remembered growing up in extremely isolated towns in the outback: life without phones or running water; the hunting and building skills that were passed down to them from older family members; and using planes to get to towns with no roads.

Suzanne Bishop and LJ Evans

One afternoon, Suzanne Bishop and LJ Evans came in to talk with each other about their roles as volunteers in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil. LJ was a volunteer in the clean-up process and Suzanne became the public information officer, giving daily press conferences.

LJ had recently moved to Alaska, and was one of the first volunteers to arrive at the scene of the spill. The morning after the tanker crashed she heard the news on the radio and went straight to the animal rescue center that had been set up and waited for the first bird to be brought in. As she remembered what it was like to clean the oil off of the animals that had been caught in the spill, she and Suzanne acknowledged that it is still difficult to talk about their memories. Suzanne, who worked to communicate the situation to press from around the world, recalled crying every night.

As volunteers continued to work to clean up the oil, letters of support poured in from around the world. LJ opened a P.O. box to receive the letters to the volunteers and decided to see what would happen if she put out a call for emails. It was the very beginning days of email, but thousands of messages came to them, thanking them for their work. Over time, Suzanne and LJ became close friends. Towards the end of their interview, LJ mentioned participating in a release of guillemot and cormorant birds that had been rescued and rehabilitated. It turned out that Suzanne had never been to one of the releases, so LJ described “the one joyous day” that she had had as a volunteer, watching the birds swarm out of their cages and fly out to the water. Nearly all of our participants talked about their deep love of the Alaskan landscape, and for these two women, that love had changed the course of their lives.

Last night Warren Lee Hill was granted a last minute stay of execution by the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals because he is mentally disabled. He came within 30 minutes of being executed by lethal injection in Jackson, Georgia.

The 1936 hanging of Rainey Bethea in Owensboro, Kentucky — the last public execution in the United States. (Courtesy: The Last Public Execution in America)

Since this country’s last public execution in 1936, there have been no known photographs or recordings of an execution. In 1998, however, audio tapes of 22 Georgia executions–recorded by members of the state’s Department of Corrections for their own records–were discovered and subpoenaed by criminal defense lawyer Michael Mears in a lawsuit he brought challenging the state’s use of the electric chair. StoryCorps founder Dave Isay obtained these recordings, and in conjunction with WNYC, broadcast them on public radio.

Ivon Ray Stanley was convicted of the 1976 murder of Clifford Floyd, an insurance agent, who was robbed, beaten, and shot. Stanley, who had an IQ of 62, was executed on July 12, 1984. He was 28 years old.

To the left is a recording of one of these, the execution of Ivon Ray Stanley in 1984. Note that the tape is edited–extended silences, repetitive phrases, and unintelligible comments have been removed.

This is a recording of the telephone conversation between department of corrections officials in Atlanta and the prison personnel in a room adjacent to the death chamber. The main speaker is Willis Marable, an assistant to the warden at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, where all of the state’s executions are carried out. From the small room adjacent to the death chamber, Marable watched the execution through a one-way mirror and described in detail exactly what transpired to officials in Atlanta. The “clunking” sounds on the tape are prison doors slamming elsewhere in the institution.

To begin the electrocution, three volunteer corrections officers, standing beside Marable, each pressed a button simultaneously. Only one button actually triggered the electricity, so the employees never knew who actually sent the fatal charge. Electricity then passed through Stanley’s body for a total of two minutes in the following stages:

Stage 1: 1,700 volts (5 sec.)
Stage 2: 1,000 volts (7 sec.)
Stage 3: 208 volts (108 sec.)

This was followed by a five-minute “cool-down” period before two physicians entered the death chamber to determine death.

Jeremy Bowden

Jerome Bowden–with an IQ of 59–was found guilty of the burglary, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and murder of two women for whom he was doing yard work. He was electrocuted on June 24, 1986. This is an audio clip of Bowden’s last words, recorded in the death chamber, immediately before his execution.

Public outrage at Bowden’s execution prompted Georgia to pass a 1988 law forbidding the execution of a retarded person. And on June 20, 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that executing killers who are mentally retarded violates the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment (Atkins v. Virginia).

Warren Lee Hill was sentenced to death for the 1990 murder of fellow inmate Joseph Handspike. Hill’s lawyers argued that his IQ of 70 should spare him the death penalty under the 2002 decision. Numerous state courts ruled that Hill doesn’t qualify under Georgia law, which requires inmates to prove mental impairment “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Hill was granted a last minute stay of execution on February 19, 2013 by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Related:

Hector Black came to StoryCorps to remember his daughter, Patricia Ann Nuckles. Nuckles was murdered by Ivoa Simpson in 2000. Simpson is serving a sentence of life without parole in Telfair State Prison in Helena, Georgia.

“We'd known death but not like this.”

Hector Black remembers the murder of his daughter, Patricia Nuckles, by an intruder in her home.

Recorded in Nashville, TN