MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Ongoing oral history projects at the Albert Gore Research Center at Middle Tennessee State University are spotlighted in the February episode of “Out of the Blue,” the university’s television magazine program.
The Gore Center is a national leader in oral history, capturing interviews of those who’ve witnessed significant events and presenting and preserving their stories.
Show host Andrew Oppmann, vice president of the Marketing and Communications Division, talked with MTSU oral historian Jason R. McGowan about two significant projects he’s leading.
Watch the segment:
“Oral histories are a first-person narrative of a person, their life, particular event, a time, an era,” said McGowan, a graduate of MTSU’s Master of Arts in Liberal Arts program. “The stories we hear from history are from the people beyond the front lines and not the ones from the front lines. And so, it’s time for those mute voices to be heard and that’s what oral history provides.”
Over the past 18 months, McGowan has been working on the Brown v. Board of Education oral history project, funded by the National Park Service, to document the impact of the 1954 Supreme Court decision to end school segregation.
McGowan is also working on the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development-funded oral history of Rosenwald Schools, which were built in underfunded areas of the South to educate Black youth.
“Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, got together and decided that they would help to match or provide money to communities who needed these schools,” McGowan explained. “They are putting 16 interpretive panels on particular Rosenwald Schools in the three sections of Tennessee. I’m doing oral histories of former students of those schools.”
McGowan also shared news about two other ongoing projects at the Gore Center. Director Louis Kyriakoudes is working on the Bill Frist Senate Staff oral history project
as well as documenting the history of the Murfreesboro-based National Healthcare Corp.
To learn more about the Gore Center, visit https://gorecenter.mtsu.edu/.
“Out of the Blue” is available anytime on the university’s YouTube channel, the True Blue TV channel, Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. It also airs on Murfreesboro cable Channel 9 daily at 6 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.; NewsChannel5+ at 6:30 p.m. Sundays; and streamed on the MTSU Jazz Network through WMOT.org at 7 a.m. on the first Sunday of each month; and on other cable outlets in Middle Tennessee, so check local listings.
It is also available as a podcast on iTunes and Google Play and as individual interview segments on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/453hxg3.
Watch previous episodes of “Out of the Blue” at https://mtsunews.com/out-of-the-blue.
— Nancy DeGennaro (Nancy.DeGennaro@mtsu.edu
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