Tape 1; Whelchel, Dwight; Lewis and Jenkins, 1990-1995
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| - | Now show from Mrs. Bremmick, | 0:04 |
| I think would validate some things | 0:06 | |
| that Bremmick had to listen to say about our, | 0:09 | |
| the leadership in this town, | 0:13 | |
| and that leadership has been since everyone | 0:16 | |
| that has been reluctant to accept outsiders. | 0:19 | |
| And outsiders could be perceived as persons | 0:23 | |
| who perhaps may not have been born in Durham, Mass, | 0:27 | |
| and been here legitly. | 0:30 | |
| But it's also perceived as a phenomenon, | 0:31 | |
| I think, of people who have not participated | 0:37 | |
| in the Durham community. | 0:41 | |
| And for all intents and purposes, | 0:43 | |
| there seems to be a point of view among those people who, | 0:45 | |
| their leadership, particularly from the forum, | 0:49 | |
| or the committee, that you've got to pay | 0:52 | |
| your dues in Durham. | 0:55 | |
| Otherwise, you know, the kinda support that | 0:56 | |
| you perhaps might get in some kind of political race | 0:59 | |
| that you might be involved in would all be lukewarm. | 1:02 | |
| That's, I think that's one of the real lasting impressions | 1:05 | |
| that's come out, that's come from the project thus forth. | 1:08 | |
| I'd like to say one other thing, and that's a little bit | 1:13 | |
| about the technical side of our project. | 1:16 | |
| I think we learned a whole lot from your saying, | 1:18 | |
| yes, we went along. | 1:22 | |
| If you were able to knowledge what we did, for example, | 1:25 | |
| with John Hope Franklin, | 1:28 | |
| as opposed to what happened earlier, | 1:29 | |
| there is a marked difference in the quality of the product, | 1:31 | |
| okay? | 1:36 | |
| Now, there are some variables that we could not control. | 1:37 | |
| We did not have, in most cases, except for the very | 1:41 | |
| beginning of some initial interviews, | 1:44 | |
| we did not have a tripod. | 1:46 | |
| We certainly did not have the best camera | 1:48 | |
| that was available to do this work, | 1:50 | |
| as we remember some discussions that | 1:52 | |
| we made earlier about the video presentation. | 1:54 | |
| You really do need quality equipment | 1:58 | |
| if you wanna do this kinda thing. | 2:00 | |
| You need to have a setting that's going | 2:03 | |
| to be free from interruption. | 2:05 | |
| And a lot of times, we were not able to control | 2:07 | |
| that kinda variable. | 2:09 | |
| And the telephone rang on some occasions, | 2:11 | |
| and people had to stop, | 2:13 | |
| and all those things were supposed | 2:15 | |
| to been taken out of tape as you viewed it here. | 2:16 | |
| But there were some glitches | 2:19 | |
| in putting all this together as well. | 2:21 | |
| So, what we're saying is that, you know, | 2:24 | |
| in many cases there were some expectations | 2:26 | |
| that we would have, all the things that we thought, | 2:29 | |
| we wouldn't necessarily put this together. | 2:32 | |
| And very simple kinds of things like a microphone | 2:33 | |
| caused major problems for us in terms of, you know, | 2:36 | |
| in terms of being able to hear the interviewees talking, | 2:38 | |
| all of the clutter noise that surrounds | 2:43 | |
| the kinda machine that we have, walk out. | 2:45 | |
| So, you know, the point I'm trying to make is that, | 2:49 | |
| you know, resources are very important | 2:51 | |
| if you wanna do these kinds of things, and you know, | 2:55 | |
| we certainly had a lot of that aspect of the project. | 2:59 | |
| - | And while Cynthia is coming to the podium, | 3:03 |
| I will read my adaptation of "Go Down, Moses," and before. | 3:07 | |
| "Go down, Daisy, way down to Arkansas, | 3:13 | |
| and tell old Jim Crow to let my people go. | 3:16 | |
| Go down way down in the south, | 3:18 | |
| and tell old fathers to let the Hook Rock Nine | 3:20 | |
| in a central high school." | 3:23 | |
| And it goes on through the 11 Confederate states, | 3:24 | |
| and it's here for your viewing | 3:27 | |
| after the second group present, | 3:28 | |
| as well as some of the photos that we took, | 3:31 | |
| including the wall lit, wall water filled evening | 3:34 | |
| between Gannett and Marinate. | 3:37 | |
| (group laughing) | 3:40 | |
| Cynthia | Good morning. | 3:44 |
| Group | Good morning. | 3:45 |
| - | What I'm going to do today | 3:46 |
| is to abbreviate to my presentation. | 3:48 | |
| What I have here are some of the things are, | 3:52 | |
| which are samples, are examples of what | 3:55 | |
| we have found in the community. | 3:58 | |
| I'm going to pass these around, and ask that you return them | 4:01 | |
| to me because these are off of, most of these are on loan. | 4:06 | |
| Sign here. | 4:14 | |
| I'm also going to pass out an archival summary sheet, | 4:15 | |
| and I'll start on this side, which will illustrate the type | 4:21 | |
| of materials that we file in the collections. | 4:25 | |
| (no audio) | 4:29 | |
| (no audio) | 4:39 | |
| And this is a draft of the archive sheet | 4:43 | |
| for those people on this side who have not gowned it yet. | 4:46 | |
| (Cynthia clears throat) | 4:53 | |
| Now, the archival profile that I conducted in conjunction | 5:00 | |
| with the interviews, one thing we did- (indistinct) | 5:05 | |
| (audience member clears throat) | 5:09 | |
| Talked to the people in the community, | 5:11 | |
| look in their records if you were allowed to do so. | 5:14 | |
| And what I did was to make notes on those forms | 5:18 | |
| that you have as to the type of materials they had, | 5:21 | |
| the amount of materials they had, | 5:25 | |
| and the general condition that those materials were in. | 5:27 | |
| Now, the, as I said, the profile | 5:31 | |
| sought to do a preliminary appraisal. | 5:37 | |
| Note that this was a preliminary appraisal, | 5:39 | |
| and we did not look detailed at every item, | 5:42 | |
| but we wanted to document where the records were | 5:46 | |
| in regards to their location, content, condition, quantity. | 5:50 | |
| Primary source records such as business and church papers, | 5:55 | |
| newsletters, Bibles, photographs, scrapbooks, | 5:59 | |
| appointment books, calendars, reports, | 6:04 | |
| and all visual materials. | 6:07 | |
| Many plaques and other types of of awards were often found. | 6:10 | |
| And the current curricula, | 6:15 | |
| and scholarly interests have highlighted | 6:17 | |
| the need for such primary source materials | 6:20 | |
| as the ones we found. | 6:22 | |
| Research on the African American experience | 6:24 | |
| should not be done separate from the broader social, | 6:27 | |
| cultural, and historical phenomenal, | 6:31 | |
| and the politics of race in America, because it is central, | 6:34 | |
| and it's a part of the real American experience, | 6:39 | |
| a part of the African American history. | 6:42 | |
| And this research project, and this archival profile | 6:46 | |
| is generally conceived as only a mirror of the pressing need | 6:50 | |
| for continued research to provide this accurate base | 6:54 | |
| of primary source materials that would promote | 6:58 | |
| the perpetuation of information that will ultimately aid | 7:03 | |
| in the development of accurate curriculum resources. | 7:07 | |
| Oh, however, in a research project of this nature, | 7:11 | |
| the treatment afforded any one individual, | 7:15 | |
| or our organization must be extremely limited. | 7:18 | |
| Some points which were of interest and importance | 7:21 | |
| often had to be approached only on the surface, | 7:25 | |
| or omitted together because we had to reduce the magnitude | 7:28 | |
| of this tremendous task to the confines of an acceptable, | 7:33 | |
| and manageable summer project. | 7:38 | |
| So therefore, this is just, I might say, | 7:41 | |
| this is just the beginning. | 7:45 | |
| (audience member coughs) | ||
| We have documented that | 7:47 | |
| there are valuable materials out there, | 7:50 | |
| we have documented the need that an oral history | 7:53 | |
| project for our, and another oral history project | 7:57 | |
| for this area with its enhanced your, | 8:01 | |
| the primary source materials that you have, | 8:04 | |
| and there's a diverse pool of information, | 8:07 | |
| and this information is currently in private hands. | 8:10 | |
| As a, my approach to the project initially was to go | 8:14 | |
| to the library when I had time, to see what was there, | 8:18 | |
| and the archives here at the Perkins Library | 8:24 | |
| has had some materials on the African American community | 8:26 | |
| in Durham, but it is extremely limited. | 8:30 | |
| (audience member clears throat) | 8:33 | |
| As a result of my travels to the manuscript section | 8:34 | |
| primarily, I have compiled a bibliography, | 8:40 | |
| which I use as a base of information | 8:44 | |
| in approaching the entire project. | 8:47 | |
| And that will be provided as a part of my report, | 8:50 | |
| and to you also if you're interested in having that. | 8:54 | |
| This concludes my auto profile, | 8:57 | |
| and if there are questions, I will- | 9:02 | |
| - | I would just like to say a query, please, | 9:05 |
| before the questions. | 9:07 | |
| (audience member sneezes) | ||
| Well, and that is concerning what I wanna say. | 9:10 | |
| The disappointment with the support that we have received. | 9:17 | |
| And I wanna make it perfectly clear, | 9:22 | |
| I came, I attended a Jim Crow school in south Georgia, | 9:26 | |
| Vincent Khan Institute. | 9:30 | |
| And when it came to Vincent's, | 9:32 | |
| just a little thing like a tape recorder. | 9:37 | |
| This tape recorder, when I went to Jim Crow school | 9:40 | |
| in the south, we got hand me downs. | 9:44 | |
| Hand me down pork and beans, | 9:49 | |
| (audience member coughs) | ||
| hand me down suits, hand me down shirts, and everything. | 9:51 | |
| And this tape recorder could document the Jim Crow south | 9:56 | |
| in the sense that, I mean, this is just minimal thing, | 10:03 | |
| you know, a tape recorder. | 10:07 | |
| But one reason that, but for the quality | 10:08 | |
| of our presentation was not improved | 10:10 | |
| is because believe it or not, | 10:13 | |
| the noise came from the tape recorder, | 10:15 | |
| the background of the tape recorder. | 10:17 | |
| And what I'm saying is, I feel very strong about this, | 10:18 | |
| Duke University being the Harvard of the south, supposedly, | 10:23 | |
| certainly could afford the minimum equipment, | 10:28 | |
| because when you don't provide the minimum equipment, | 10:32 | |
| it appears that you do not take us seriously, | 10:36 | |
| and what we are doing seriously. | 10:40 | |
| And I would just like to make that assessment, | 10:42 | |
| and just say that I am somewhat personally disappointed | 10:45 | |
| even though I know that our project was large, | 10:49 | |
| but yet I don't think that we received the minimum support | 10:52 | |
| that we should have received. | 10:56 | |
| And I want to make that loud and clear, | 10:57 | |
| and tell the group about it, | 11:00 | |
| because we do not wanna continue to perpetuate | 11:02 | |
| second class citizenship when you're doing projects | 11:05 | |
| that are related to African Americans, | 11:08 | |
| or anybody who is disinherited. | 11:11 | |
| And it seems that this is what | 11:13 | |
| the documentary center is doing, | 11:14 | |
| and I think that we should be sensitive | 11:17 | |
| to that particular point, and I just wanna say that point. | 11:18 | |
| (people murmuring indistinct) | 11:28 | |
| - | Are there any questions? | 11:34 |
| Audience Member | Any questions, indeed. | 11:36 |
| This form, and this is a form that they used | 11:37 | |
| when you were going with families | 11:41 | |
| to parlay the collections- | 11:42 | |
| (member clears throat) | ||
| - | It would depend on the collections. | 11:44 |
| Now, that's the individual form that I designed, | 11:46 | |
| and as I said, that's a graph 'cause there's some errors | 11:50 | |
| on some machines that you have. | 11:53 | |
| But he will devise the form according to where you're going. | 11:56 | |
| I have three categories, organizational forms, | 12:00 | |
| individual forms, and business forms. | 12:04 | |
| Because generally, the records that you have at a business | 12:06 | |
| will not be the records that you'll have in a private home. | 12:09 | |
| The records that you'd have in a organization | 12:13 | |
| will not reflect the records | 12:15 | |
| that you will have in a business. | 12:16 | |
| So, I have divided it into three categories, | 12:18 | |
| and that's one, Sam. | 12:22 | |
| (bell rings) | ||
| Sam | I don't have a particular, you know, interest, | 12:24 |
| but say I'm going to someone who has a collection, | 12:26 | |
| and this, and they made it available to me, | 12:30 | |
| and are you saying that you will assess it | 12:33 | |
| for purposes of advising them to put it in certain order? | 12:37 | |
| - | No, this is for for your own information, | 12:44 |
| for your information. | 12:47 | |
| But in your assessment, if you know that | 12:48 | |
| there are certain things that need to be done to the papers, | 12:51 | |
| if there are rusted staples, for example, | 12:54 | |
| if the papers are mildewed, if it needs cleaning, | 12:57 | |
| you can make those recommendations to them. | 13:01 | |
| You know, if you know a lot, enough about, | 13:03 | |
| well, preservations, (laughs) you can do that. | 13:08 | |
| I would advise whenever you see materials | 13:11 | |
| that are valuable in terms of the historic information | 13:15 | |
| they provide, to encourage the people to make sure | 13:19 | |
| that they are cared for appropriately. | 13:23 | |
| And I have a little fact sheet on some of the dos and don'ts | 13:26 | |
| that I give to people, and I'll share that with you. | 13:29 | |
| And also, if you have a, for your instance, | 13:32 | |
| you'll be doing golf, right? | 13:35 | |
| You'll be talking to golfers. | 13:37 | |
| Okay, there are, we can devise the sheet specifically, | 13:39 | |
| which will say, do you have trophies, plaques, | 13:43 | |
| or awards at golf? | 13:46 | |
| You'll look for not only the paper, | 13:48 | |
| or the archival type things, | 13:52 | |
| but you'll look for the artifacts, the museum, | 13:53 | |
| those types of things. | 13:56 | |
| So, your form will, it should incorporate both | 13:57 | |
| of those factors, and you can say both of them, | 13:59 | |
| museum and capital. | 14:03 | |
| Audience Member | Okay. | 14:06 |
| Organizer | In the interest of time, | 14:08 |
| we're going to ask Mary and Mary to | 14:11 | |
| begin their presentation. | 14:17 | |
| And toward the end of our general session this morning | 14:19 | |
| in Allen building, if there are still questions | 14:23 | |
| reflecting on all of the earlier presentations, | 14:27 | |
| we would ask the presenters to be available | 14:31 | |
| to respond to those questions, and. | 14:33 | |
| - | I guess I can interpret that to mean that we deserve you. | 14:36 |
| (people laughing and applauding) | 14:39 | |
| But I would just like to say that on this project, | 14:44 | |
| the four of us worked sometimes from seven o'clock | 14:47 | |
| until after midnight on doing this, | 14:51 | |
| and this represents a lot of work, | 14:54 | |
| and it, until 11, it represents a lot of frustration, | 14:57 | |
| because we were still at it | 15:01 | |
| (audience member coughing) | ||
| at what, three o'clock this morning trying to pull | 15:03 | |
| everything together, and yesterday we were fighting. | 15:05 | |
| (group laughing) | 15:09 | |
| (video humming) | 15:12 |
Item Info
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