“Living History”; or, Engaging Campus Communities Where They Are

This presentation centers the internal and external relationships built and sustained by the Tulane University History Project to offer a multifaceted narrative of the school’s twentieth century racial history. In recognizing the need to center obscured and silenced voices, the History Project established an oral history component, “Making Waves.” “Making Waves” records the oral histories of alumni, staff, faculty, administrators, collaborators, and others who have played meaningful roles in shaping Tulane’s racial history. Some key oral histories of narrators and their importance to Tulane’s racial history will be highlighted. This presentation will also engage how the Tulane History Project developed an oral history program and how it engages graduate and undergraduate students in the process, providing them with practical historical research skills in physical and digital archives, oral history best practices, ethical research methods, and public engagement.