B-CU's Oral History Collection is Awarded Robert Frederick Smith Summer Internship Program from the National African American Museum of History and Culture for the Third Consecutive Year
PHOTO CAPTION:Dr. Jeannette Ford (L) reviews work sample with Robert Frederick Smith Fund Interns Clarissa West-White (C) and Maurice Hendricks (R).
DAYTONA BEACH, FL – Dr. Jeannette F. Ford, B-CU College of Liberal Arts Associate Professor of History has been awarded a third and final year of the prestigious Robert Frederick Smith Fund Summer Internships in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture to digitize and publish the BCU Oral History Collection (https://www.cookman.edu/history/index.html.). Since 2001 BCC/B-CU students researched the history of Mary McLeod Bethune and the school she founded in 1904, through recorded and transcribed oral histories and interpretative historical materials for the widest possible use. For example, in The Untold Storydocumentary, visitors to the webpages can hear former BCC President Oswald P. Bronson, Sr., Mr. James Huger, Dr. Cleo Higgins, Dr. Mary Alice Smith and many other beloved members of the BCC/B-CU family in the Centennial Oral History Project. In theHistoric Second AvenueProjectpages, one can view local community members speak about the Midtown area before the era of Urban Renewal and maps of Second Avenue.
2018 interns Grace Gardziella and Caleb Ebner along with 2019 interns Clarissa West-White Ph.D, and Maurice Hendricks were paid a living wage for full-time work focused on disseminating interview-based material, designing documentaries, databases and interactive maps about the five ongoing oral history projects Ford created. Mentored interns also conduct interviews with individuals associated with Mary McLeod Bethune, Bethune Cookman University, and the local African American Community.
One of Dr. Ford's five oral history projects that students complete in her African American History courses is the Family History Portfolio (FHP). Over 1,200 FHPs interviews collected provide a wealth of personal narratives between students and their family elders needed cataloging and encoding. Aside from other duties including narrating documentaries, Clarissa West-White patiently and painstakingly developed a finding aid for the Archives. She also established a Dublin Core metadata (“data about data”) standard template in order for researchers to easily search and analyze hundreds of FHPs. The metadata provides the essential link between the information creatorand the information user. Creating the metadata for each family history portfolio is a tedious but necessary process for online searches to yield results once the archives go online. Clarissa also uploaded portfolios using Nvivo so that in the future, subsequent interns can begin analyzing patterns in students’ quotations and reflections.
Maurice Hendricks performed specific tasks including web page design and editing video documentaries. All the data, stories and information gathered from community members and students contributes to research about Mary McLeod Bethune, the history of Bethune-Cookman University, and the local community. Upon realizing the sheer volume of the collection, Maurice observed, “Having interns participate in the B-CU offsite location of the Robert F. Smith Fund allows for the public to hear stories and find out information about Mrs. Bethune they otherwise would have never known, particularly what Bethune actually endured to get her school started, how much she meant for the community in Daytona Beach, how she advised US presidents, and, had an international presence”.
The third year summer interns, yet to be selected, will continue developing the Collection to publish biographies of participants, articles and interviews, create a database for FHP quotations and develop a multi-year interactive digital maps of the heyday of Second Avenue (now Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard) in Daytona Beach.
For more information about contributing an interview or applying for the Summer 2020 internship, please contact fordj@cookman.edu.