Today, the Baldwin-Emerson Elders Project becomes available to the public for the first time.

The stories of Black, Latine, Asian, Indigenous, and queer elders in America have been inadequately preserved by institutional archives, and award-winning writer Jacqueline Woodson has taken it upon herself to address the gaps in our collective memory.

In a moving letter written about her mother, who lived through the Great Migration, Woodson writes: “Her past was a silent, painful memory that she rarely shared. Like so many coming of age during Jim Crow, the horrors of the south were filled with stories that were ‘left’ in the south.” In the letter, Woodson describes returning to her mother’s home in Greenville after her death and finding extraordinary stories of survival and greatness in otherwise ordinary people, like her mother.

Launched in 2020 by Woodson’s nonprofit, Baldwin For The Arts, in partnership with Incite, I See My Light Shining: The Baldwin-Emerson Elders Project set out to capture and honor stories like those of Woodson’s mother. Inspired by the Federal Writers’ Project, the Elders Project sent ten prolific writers (named Baldwin-Emerson Fellows) across America to capture oral testimonies, photographs, and letters collected from over 200 elders.

Focusing on ten regions, the Elders Project examines topics including the emergence of social justice movements, gender and diversity politics, housing inequality and displacement, and stories of protest, rebuilding, love, and liberation. In their interviews, narrators chart the trajectories of their own lives against the changing social, economic, and cultural landscapes of the last century.

Author Eve L. Ewing’s collection—narrated through interviews with 20 elders—explores Black migration to and within Chicago, from the Great Migration to the legacies of displacement within the city. Writer Jenna “J” Wortham’s collection explores first-person accounts of queer pleasure on East Coast waterfronts, as well as the ways that these locations have become a site for queer exploration, expression, resistance, and ultimately, survival. The project’s ten collections have different geographic foci, but share a common interest in migratory trajectories and identity formation.

At Incite and the Oral History Archives at Columbia, Mary Marshall Clark and Kimberly Springer co-directed the project. Madeline Alexander project managed, navigating the complexity of ten simultaneous oral history projects in ten different regions. Alexander worked with Chris Pandza to develop an accessible, navigable, and vibrant digital archive. Today, this archive became available for the first time on a dedicated project website.

Louisiana-born Pasadena resident and healthcare worker Natalie Owens, second from left, with neighborhood friends. In her interview with Robin Coste Lewis, Owens charts her own life experiences against the changing social and cultural fabric of America, describing her marriages, family dynamics, education, while offering an important glimpse at 20th-century Black life in Los Angeles.

To celebrate this achievement, the Elders Project is hosting a panel, art show, and celebration at the Center for Brooklyn History on May 19th at 5PM ET. The event is free and open to the public.

In the coming months, the Elders Project will also host regional events corresponding with the collections’ geographic foci. To stay current with the Elders Project and other Incite news, subscribe to our mailing list.

Marsha P. Johnson hands out flyers in support of queer NYU students.
Photo: Diana Davies / New York Public Library.

Last year we announced our partnership with Emerson Collective and Baldwin for the Arts to support acclaimed author Jacqueline Woodson’s I See My Light Shining: Oral Histories of our Elders. This ambitious oral history project seeks to preserve the stories of elders who have shaped America—from Civil Rights activists to Native American tribal leaders to survivors of Stonewall—before they’re lost to history. Though the project’s collection of narrators is diverse in geography and lived experience, each story is united by common themes of identity creation and migration.

Woodson has selected a remarkable cohort of writers to collect these stories in locales across the country. Ten writers will conduct around 30 interviews each—that’s a collection of nearly 300 interviews!

Given its complexity, managing this production is no small feat. Our very own Madeline Alexander, Project Manager, has been working diligently to make this cross-country undertaking possible. Managing all of the project’s elements—including training, budgeting, interview logistics, and transcription—Alexander has successfully brought the project well into its interview phase.

As recordings and transcripts from across the country arrive at her desk, Alexander is already witnessing the project’s potential firsthand. “I See My Light Shining is an homage to the bravery, experiences, and essence of our elders,” Alexander says. She adds:

“We seek to uplift the narrators’ voices by investigating migration throughout the United States as a geographic access point to identity creation. We plan to honor and create accessibility to life stories, because as we have found, each story is a talisman to the understanding of our own histories, identities and connections with each other.”

I See My Light Shining poses important confrontations to issues of authority and representation, which Alexander notes, are central to Incite’s mission: creating knowledge that leads to more just, equitable, and democratic societies.

The experience has also been transformative for the project’s ten writers. Project writer and Stonewall Book Award winner Carolina de Robertis reflects on their experience: "I've been blown away over and over by this work, and look forward to seeing it (and my amazing colleagues' interviews) shared with the world."

We share in Carolina’s sentiment, and look forward to updating you on the project’s progress and public rollout later this year.

Project will equip 10 distinguished writers and storytellers to capture oral histories and artifacts from hundreds of elders from across the country

Jacqueline Woodson. Photo credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

The Columbia Center for Oral History Research and the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics is partnering with the Emerson Collective and Baldwin For The Arts to support acclaimed author and 2020 MacArthur Fellow Jacqueline Woodson’s new project: I See My Light Shining: Oral Histories of our Elders. Through Baldwin For The Arts, a group of talented and award-winning writers will be deployed to conduct oral history interviews with people in various regions of the country, capturing unrecorded memories and life experiences before these stories are lost to history.

“From aging Civil Rights activists to Native American tribal leaders, to survivors of Stonewall, many stories remain untold or beyond the grasp of museums and institutions,” Woodson said. “When these elders pass away, their records and accounts may go with them. Our project seeks to fill these gaps before it’s too late.” 

Woodson will guide the project creatively and has selected the cohort of 10 writers who will collect these histories, which will be housed in the Oral History Archives at Columbia University, one of the largest oral history collections in the world. 

We are pleased to announce this remarkable group of Baldwin-Emerson fellows:

• Natalie Diaz

• Eve Ewing

• Denice Frohman

• Caleb Gayle

• Robin Coste Lewis

• April Reign

• Carolina De Robertis

• Ellery Washington

• Renee Watson

• Jenna Wortham

Each fellow will conduct approximately 30 interviews with people in targeted geographies across the United States, from New York City, to the American Deep South, to the Greenwood District in Tulsa, to Native American reservations in Arizona and New Mexico. 

Those who are interviewed will also have the opportunity to have their family archival records preserved, including “home movie” footage, photographs, letters, and additional ephemera. The product will be an expansive archive of 300 interviews, alongside other media and documents, made available publicly and online, and with the potential to furnish museum exhibitions for visitors of all kinds. 

The project is funded by Emerson Collective, an organization dedicated to creating pathways to opportunity so people can live to their full potential. 

Columbia will serve in a curatorial and advisory capacity, adapting its longstanding expertise in oral history practice to help Woodson bring forth her vision. The work at Columbia will be co-directed by Mary Marshall Clark, director of the Columbia Center for Oral History Research and Kimberly Springer, curator of the Oral History Archive.

“Our collection is distinguished for the inclusion of all those who shape our world, not just ‘Great Men.’ We have and continue to build an archive that includes a vast array of histories so that current and future generations learn lessons from our times,” said Springer. “That’s why we’re thrilled to support Jacqueline in a project so consistent with that spirit.”

“We could not be more excited to work with Jacqueline to support her extraordinary vision and the gifted writers she has chosen to carry out the oral histories. The scope of this project is breathtaking. Our world will be better with the collection and sharing of these rich historical stories,” said Clark.

To kick-off the project, the fellows will take part in a series of oral history training sessions that will be led by Columbia’s oral history team, to conclude by mid-April. The interviews will commence shortly after and be complete by December 2022, with the goal of making the project accessible in the libraries and online no later than December 2023.

“We see such great promise in this project, and the partnership with Jacqueline and Columbia,” said Anne Marie Burgoyne, Emerson Collective’s managing director for philanthropy. “It has the potential to produce something lasting, not just in the records and recollections gathered, but in creating a new model for the preservation and inheritance of previously neglected histories.”

ABOUT: 

Emerson Collective

Emerson Collective is an organization dedicated to creating pathways to opportunity so people can live to their full potential. Using a broad range of tools including philanthropy, impact investing and policy solutions to create the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Established and led by Laurene Powell Jobs, Emerson Collective is working to renew some of society’s most calcified systems, creating new possibilities for individuals, families, and communities.

Baldwin For The Arts

Founded by Jacqueline Woodson in 2018, the mission of Baldwin For The Arts is to create a nurturing space for artists of the Global Majority to explore, create, and breathe, free from the distractions and hindrances of everyday life. As a 501c3 non-profit organization, Baldwin endeavors to change the artistic landscape so that it may reflect the world in which we live, challenging this field's history of leaving too many talented Global Majority artists of all ages, genders, and backgrounds unrecognized and unsupported. As a residency exclusively devoted to people of the Global Majority, Baldwin For The Arts is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of artists of all disciplines.

The Columbia Center for Oral History Research

As one of the world’s leading centers for the practice and teaching of oral history, the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR) seeks to record unique life histories, document the central historical events and memories of our times, provide public programming, and teach and do research across the disciplines. CCOHR is housed at and administered by the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE). 

Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics

Leveraging the ideas and empirical tools of the social and human sciences, INCITE conceives and conducts collaborative research, projects, and programs that generate knowledge, promote just and equitable societies, and enrich our intellectual environment. It administers CCOHR and the Oral History Master of Arts program, the first program of its kind in the United States training students in oral history methods and theory.  

Oral History Archives at Columbia University Libraries

The Oral History Archives was founded by historian and journalist Allan Nevins in 1948 and is credited with launching the establishment of oral history archives internationally. At over 10,000 interviews, the Oral History Archives is one of the largest oral history collections in the United States. The archives are housed at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library in Butler Library at Columbia University and is open to all.