With 110,000 Americans shot every year, gun violence is a public health crisis. Indeed, forty percent of Americans will either be shot or know someone who has been shot in their lifetimes. In both “THE 40% PROJECT: An Oral History of Gun Violence in America,” and her new documentary play based on the interviews, The Survivors, Holly Werner-Thomas centers the life stories of people directly affected by gun violence. In this session, Holly will discuss how their personal testimony challenges dominant narratives about crime and safety – narratives that drive current policy – and her own efforts towards amplifying their too-often-ignored voices. 

Holly Werner-Thomas is a writer and oral historian whose practice is grounded in historical scholarship and current events, but who has a passion for true stories no matter the topic. She is a graduate of the Oral History Master of Arts program at Columbia University, where she initiated an ongoing effort to capture the stories of gun violence victims (“The 40 Percent Project: An Oral History of Gun Violence in America”). Her documentary play based on the interviews, The Survivors, won the Columbia University 2020 Jeffrey H. Brodsky Oral History Award. Holly is helping to organize a symposium that asks, “Is Oral History White?” an event that grew out of an eponymous Oral History Association panel that investigated race in three Baltimore oral history projects, for which she was one of the presenters. She has also worked as an oral historian for the Hurricane Katrina Oral History Project in conjunction with the University of Southern Mississippi as well as for the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. She is currently visiting oral history consultant for History Associates, Inc., leading projects for the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Lemelson-MIT Program.

BLOG REFLECTIONS:

DESTRUCTIVELY TESTING RESPONSIBILITY: A REFLECTION FROM A NON-SURVIVOR by Emily R. Kahn

WATCH VIDEO

These events are open to all. For more information or if we can make any of these events more accessible to you please contact Rebecca McGilveray at rlm2203@columbia.edu.