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Beginning in mid-April, area residents will have a chance to participate in one of the nation’s largest oral history projects. StoryCorps, whose interviews air on National Public Radio, will be in Georgetown for a month, recording conversations.
It is a chance to highlight the history of the region, said Michael Moore, Public Radio Delmarva’s membership director. Public Radio Delmarva, based at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Md., partnered with StoryCorps to bring one of the organization’s MobileBooths to Georgetown.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s very exciting for the region. There are a lot of people in the area who are getting older who haven’t yet passed on their stories orally,” Moore said.
National Public Radio airs excerpts from StoryCorps interviews every Friday. The interviews are meant to create a picture of American life and the American experience.
StoryCorps interviews are not only question-and-answer interviews conducted by facilitators. What StoryCorps wants are the more detailed, more personal stories – the kind friends tell friends, parents tell children and grandparents tell grandchildren.
Itt encourages people to go to its booths in pairs and record conversations between people whose lives are closely connected.
“We want people to go out and tell their stories, to interview people they love and care about and to talk about things that are special and important to them,” Moore said.
StoryCorps has a goal to record oral histories in all 50 states, Moore said. So far, the organization has visited 46 states, including Maryland.
“Our mission is to celebrate and honor one another’s lives through listening,” says StoryCorps. Launched in 2003, the nonprofit organization has recorded nearly 15,000 stories in four permanent StoryBooths and with three MobileBooths that drive around the country instructing and aiding people in recording each other’s life stories.
People who can’t make it to the handicapped-accessible MobileBooth can rent StoryKits from the organization or take advantage of StoryCorps’s do-it-yourself guide for those who want to record friends and family members at home.
Participants are given copies of their interviews on CD. The audio is archived in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Interviews from StoryCorps special initiatives, such as the Griot Initiative to preserve the voices of African-Americans and the September 11 Initiative to capture the stories of people affected by the terrorist attacks, will be stored in more than one place. Griot interviews will be kept at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and Sept. 11 interviews will be, with permission, part of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Copies will also be kept at the Library of Congress.
Beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 3, StoryCorps will be taking reservations for interview times in Georgetown. Reservations are required. Make reservations by calling 800-850-4406.
Contact Leah Hoenen at leah@capegazette.com
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