Behind the Veil Project Oral History Project

Launched by Duke University's Lyndhurst Center for Documentary Studies in 1990, the Behind the Veil project seeks to record and preserve the living memory of African-American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s. In order to correct historical misrepresentations of African-American experiences in the Jim Crow South, the project seized the opportunity to capture, through interviews, family photographs and other materials, the memories of black elders who survived this era of profound racial oppression. The resulting collection offers researchers an abundance of rich resources for understanding black self-images, racial pride and achievement during the long period of American apartheid. This documentary record reflects not only the terror, hardship and frustration of this period of second-class citizenship, but also the individual and collective struggles of black southerners to survive and prosper in spite of the policies of white supremacy. By collecting narratives that recount the everyday experiences of African Americans from various locations and backgrounds, the collection provides rich documentary evidence of the diversity of black life during the Jim Crow era.

Behind the Veil not only focuses on the experiences of individuals, but it also reflects the importance of black institutions as the backbone of black communities. The interviews, documents and photographs reflect the crucial role that black churches, fraternal societies, women's clubs, and political organizations played in African American community life. The testimony of educators and students from historically black colleges, agricultural schools and institutes enrich conventional beliefs about black agency in segregated schools. A rich record about black education can be gleaned from examining certain research sites including Tuskegee, Ala.; Fargo, Ark.; Tallahassee, Fla.; and Norfolk, Va.

Behind the Veil also provides a richly detailed account of the shape of southern segregation across time and in diverse locations, mapping the contours of both the formal laws and informal rules that restricted southern life. Segregation as public policy differed in rural and urban communities, while the rules that governed black interactions with whites often were distinct to each community. These nuances that governed race relations in southern cities, towns and rural communities are interspersed throughout the documents in this collection.

Although the questions that spurred on research in the Behind the Veil Project were raised by historians interested primarily in the age of segregation, the resulting record can inform research in diverse fields. Although the focus of the interviews was on the Jim Crow era, the life history format of most interviews led informants to comment on events after segregation. Vital information about civil rights struggles in the 1960s, African American participation in desegregation within local communities, and post-1965 activism and community work are also included in many Behind the Veil interviews. The interviews in this collection also raise crucial questions about the shape of memory and the creation of narratives that can inform not only research in oral history but also literature and anthropology. Research into black religion can be enriched by the voices of Behind the Veil. Studies that examine oppression and resistance could be challenged by the rich documentary record of labor and social culture that the collection presents. The Behind the Veil collection illuminates innumerable topics, time periods, and research interests.

During the summers of 1993, 1994 and 1995, multi-racial research teams traveled throughout the South to conduct oral history interviews with elders in African-American communities. During the first summer, the project ran a series of pilot studies in five North Carolina communities. Subsequently, the project followed a thematic approach while conducting research in areas selected to represent the diversity of cultures and geographic regions within the South, as well as the predominant work cultures of the region. Researchers were chosen from applications from history graduate students at a diverse range of schools, from the Ivy League to historically black institutions such as Jackson State and Clark-Atlanta to state universities such as Michigan and Maryland. Collectively, they conducted 1260 oral history interviews in more than twenty communities in ten Southern states. They also copied thousands of family photographs and other materials that reveal the diversity of African-American experiences under Jim Crow.

While based at Duke University, the Behind the Veil project has been a collaborative venture from its inception. Scholars from historically black colleges and universities such as LeMoyne-Owen College, North Carolina Central University, Johnson C. Smith University, Jackson State University and Clark-Atlanta University have helped to shape the research project and have developed related curriculum projects to introduce undergraduates to oral history methodology as a means to discover and document the histories of the communities in which they live. Research teams worked in collaboration with a wide variety of black community and civic groups, which played critical roles in recruiting potential interviewees and providing logistical support. Summer researchers were hosted by distinguished institutions such as the Black Archives at Florida A&M University and the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama. Local institutions also helped researchers to understand the communities in which they worked and to frame their interview questions and research agendas accordingly. In turn, the Behind the Veil project has deposited copies of the interviews in local archives at or near the various cooperating institutions, assuring that these histories will be accessible to local community members as well as scholars throughout the South.

The Behind the Veil project received major funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation and the Lyndhurst Foundation. Duke University historians William Chafe, Raymond Gavins and Robert Korstad co-direct the project. Aminah Pilgrim has served as Research Associate for Behind the Veil, and Leslie Brown, Alexander X. Byrd, Greta Ai-Yu Niu, Paul Ortiz and Anne M. Valk have been the project's Research Coordinators.

The addition to the collection, 2000-0183, includes information from American Communities: An Oral History Approach, a course associated with the Behind the Veil oral history project at Duke's Center for Documentary Studies. The course was taught by Paul Ortiz at Duke University in 1996-1997.

Another addition, 2004-0344, includes slides related to African American life in the 20th century with a focus on the Jim Crow Era.