Southern Oral History Program

The Southern Oral History Program collects interviews with Southerners who have made significant contributions to a variety of fields and interviews that will render historically visible those whose experience is not reflected in traditional written sources.

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Tobacco, history, and memory: Storytelling and cultural grieving in eastern North Carolina, 1998-1999 (Abstract K.5). WorldCat record id: 49820098

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Segregation and integration of North Carolina athletics programs, 1998-2000 (Abstract K.6). WorldCat record id: 49820099

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Voices after the deluge: Oral history investigations of the great North Carolina flood, 1999 (Abstract K.9). WorldCat record id: 49820102

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Stephens-Lee High School, Asheville, N.C., 1998 (Abstract K.16). WorldCat record id: 54531860

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: School desegregation: Davidson student interviews, 1999 (Abstract K.11). WorldCat record id: 52296455

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Southern Louisiana environmentalism, 2000 (Abstract K.15). WorldCat record id: 52296460

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Asian voices, 1998 (Abstract K.14). WorldCat record id: 52296458

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: African Americans in Hancock County, Ga., 1988-2001 (Abstract K.10). WorldCat record id: 52296454

From the description of The Long Civil Rights Movement: The South Since the 1960s: Preserving the African American Experience in Pamlico County, N.C., 2007 (Series U.14). WorldCat record id: 437399625

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Terra Ceia Community, 1998 (Abstract K.18). WorldCat record id: 54531864

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: School desegregation in Charlotte, N.C., 2000s (Abstract K.13). WorldCat record id: 52296457

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Bob Gilgor's Mighty Tigers--Oral histories of Chapel Hill's Lincoln High School, 2000-2001 (Abstract K.17). WorldCat record id: 54531861

From the description of The Long Civil Rights Movement: The South Since the 1960s: Preserving the African American experience in Pamlico County, N.C., 2007 (Series U.14). WorldCat record id: 696014365

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: School desegregation: Davidson-Johnson C. Smith student interviews, 2001 (Abstract K.12). WorldCat record id: 52296456

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Cambodian community in Greensboro, N.C., 2000 (Abstract K.8). WorldCat record id: 49820101

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: History of gay men in Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000 (Abstract K.3). WorldCat record id: 49820095

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Desegregation and the inner life of Chapel Hill schools, 2001 (Abstract K.4). WorldCat record id: 49820097

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: Tradition and development in Madison County's I-26 corridor, 2000-2001 (Abstract K.7). WorldCat record id: 49820100

From the description of The Long Civil Rights Movement: The South Since the 1960s: Economic justice in Charleston, S.C., 2008 (Series U.15). WorldCat record id: 696016646

From the description of Southern communities: Listening for a change: North Carolina churches, 1998-1999 (Abstract K.19). WorldCat record id: 54531865

In 1973, the History Dept. of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill established an oral history program devoted to the study of the southern region of the United States. The Southern Oral History Program collects interviews with southerners who have made significant contributions to various fields of human endeavor. In addition, the Program undertakes special projects with the purpose of rendering historically visible those whose experience is not reflected in traditional written sources. Interviews are conducted by Program staff, graduate students, faculty members, and consultants. The Program also serves as a collecting agency, accepting donations of tapes and transcripts of interviews conducted by other researchers.

From the description of Southern Oral History Program collection, 1973-2012. WorldCat record id: 27190182

In September 1973, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill established an oral history program devoted to the study of the southern region. The Southern Oral History Program is engaged in the collection of interviews with individuals in North Carolina and in the South who have made significant contributions to various fields of human endeavor. In addition, the Program undertakes special projects with the purpose of rendering historically visible those whose consciousness and experience are not reflected in traditional written sources. The result is the preservation of information that exists only in the minds of living men and women, material which, if unrecorded, would soon be lost.

The Program has established projects in several areas-- individual biographies, southern women, workers and labor movements, contemporary politics, and North Carolina social history. In addition, the Program serves as a collecting agency; tapes and transcripts are donated to the Program by other researchers.

In 1994, a gift from Walter Royal Davis enabled the Southern Oral History Program and the Academic Affairs Library to establish the Davis Oral History Fund and to launch five projects aimed at understanding how North Carolinians have dealt with the changes that have transformed the state since the Great Depression. These projects focus on University history; North Carolina politics; business history; women's leadership and grassroots activism; and memory and community studies.

Interviews done directly under the auspices of the Southern Oral History Program are conducted by Program staff, graduate students, faculty members, and consultants. The structure of the interview depends on its purposes. In some cases, lengthy biographical memoirs are undertaken. In others, interviews focus only on the specific aspects of the respondent's experience that bear on the historical concerns of the interviewer.

Transcripts are available for many of the interviews. Inaudible phrases may be indicated in the transcripts by a blank space, appearing: ( ) . Ellipses indicate a pause in speech. False starts are omitted and punctuation is added for the sake of clarity. It should be noted that transcripts vary somewhat in style and appearance. Early transcripts were corrected by hand; in later ones, corrections have been typewritten. Abstracts or tape indexes exist for many interviews, and introductory biographical sketches have been prepared for some interviews. Some transcripts were returned to the interviewee for approval. If necessary, a revised transcript was prepared. In cases where transcripts have been significantly rewritten, a note to that effect is appended.

From the guide to the Southern Oral History Program Collection, 1973-2013, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)