This event explores the creation of local intergenerational public memory projects in advocating for policy change in Chapel Hill, NC.
About this event
Historical study is unproductive if it does not inform present policy. History should not sit in a book on a shelf, or be visited in an elite library or museum. History is for the people and should be used to reflect on the moment that we are currently in. Throughout history, Black people have been structurally left out of most academic historical narratives as authors and analysts of Black history.
For Black people, as with most marginalized groups, documenting why something happened is often more important than what happened because if circumstances don't change, these patterns will continually repeat across generations. Those most impacted by this history have to provide oral histories of what they experienced, and how they resisted through historic freedom movements, and use these as tools for assessment and policy change. In our approach to Critical Oral History a group of participants with various perspectives convenes to discuss a particular historical period or experience in conversation with young people, archives, and scholars. This allows us to create deeper and more useful historical knowledge.
Danita Mason-Hogans adapted the methods of Critical Oral History to create local intergenerational public memory projects and advocate for policy change in Chapel Hill, NC. In conversation with special guest and collaboration partner Dr. Wesley Hogan, Mason-Hogans will examine this work and how it built on methodologies from the SNCC-Duke Project.
Danita Mason-Hogans is an oral historian, memory worker and native of Chapel Hill NC, from a family of seven generations of "movement people.” She uses oral histories to advocate for policy change, and works at Duke University in partnership with veterans of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (or SNCC) and today’s activists to center equity when documenting national and local movement history. Her TED talk provides an explanation of the Critical Oral History methodology which she helped to adapt.
Danita helped to establish the first Chapel Hill Civil Rights Task Force, a podcast series on Chapel Hill history, the Chapel Hill Nine Monument, James Cates Memorial, and four documentaries about women in the local movement. Her recent projects include a community-wide reparations book club discussion with Dr. Simona Goldin and authors Sandy Darity and Kirsten Mullen, work with the UNC School of Medicine, the James Cates Scholars young history collective, and a documentary with Al Roker and John Deere entitled “Gaining Ground, the Fight for Black Land.” Her current avocation is for a no-cost education program and cost-free college tuition for the descendants of the enslaved laborers at UNC.