We can’t believe the first leg of the StoryCorps Griot is over. Above, facilitator Jason Reynolds peels off the logos for Atlanta radio partners WABE 90.1 and WCLK 91.9 - his penance for being the first to leave the Griot tour. The rest of the crew (Nadja, John, and Elaine) will continue on with the GriotBooth to Newark, New Jersey, where they will be joined by facilitator Alex Wright, fresh off her tour on MobileBooth East. We’ll miss you, Jason!

Radio partners WABE and WCLK hosted a StoryCorps Griot reception at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site during our last week in Atlanta.

The evening started with an hour of hors d’oeuvres, mingling, and live music provided by the Eddie Jaxon Jazz Ensemble.

All four of us (pictured above from l to r: Nadja, Jason, John, Elaine) were in attendance to mingle with participants and other guests from the Atlanta community. StoryCorps Founder and Executive Director Dave Isay came all the way from New York to speak about StoryCorps Griot and play excerpts of some Atlanta stories, which also aired on WABE.

As you can see, it was a full house with standing room only. The reception was the perfect ending to a lovely stay. Saturday marks the last day of interviews in Atlanta, then we’re off to Newark, New Jersey for the second stop on the Griot tour.

Participant Wanda Bennett (pictured above) came to the StoryCorps GriotBooth to talk about her family, who are part of the quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Gee’s Bend is a small, isolated, rural community inhabited by the descendants of freed slaves who learned to make the most of what they had. The women in this community developed a distinctive style of quilting using scraps of clothing and other fabric. These quilts are now revered as works of modern art, as well as symbols of resourcefulness and perseverance. They can be seen in the traveling art exhibit The Quilts of Gee’s Bend.

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Edwin Simmons brought his mother Dorothy to the StoryCorps GriotBooth on Friday, March 16th to interview her about growing up in Harlem. She lived right behind the famous Apollo Theater, which she often snuck into to watch performances. Her nickname back then was “Skinny Dot”, and in high school, she joined a club called “The Tall-Timers”. To be a member, men had to be at least 6′ tall, and women had to be 5′9″. The Tall-Timers would go to dances together so that the women would have taller dance partners.

Dorothy’s husband-to-be was also a member of the Tall-Timers, and Edwin definitely inherited their height. However, StoryCorps does not discriminate against anyone, short or tall, though Dorothy and Edwin did have to squat down for us to take their photos for the archive (seen above). Pictured below are Edwin (still crouching) and Dorothy with Edwin’s wife, who picked them up after the interview.

"When my father died it hurt, but when Dr. King died…it took me to a whole ‘nother level."
- Lula Joe Williams, on the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Lula Joe Williams was an employee of the SCLC and was present in the office on the last day of Dr. King’s life.


Lula Joe
a poem

When I heard the news
That King was dead
My throat opened
Released a pain
At a God deafening volume
My heart
Billy-club beating broken

My legs
Water hose weak
Wishing for one more walk
One more march
With Martin

One more wave
And confident
Tilt of the fedora
One more
Anything

Sometimes I still
Think of that day
Daydreaming with
Eyes still
Tear gas glazed
How he came into the office
That morning
Tired solemn serious
But sweet enough
To wave goodbye to me
Before Memphis

I would’ve waved back
And maybe gave him a hug
And whispered something like
Well done

Had I known

- poem by Jason Reynolds

At StoryCorps, there seem to be less than six degrees of separation. While recording interviews at the Atlanta ACORN office yesterday, participant Shani Franklin (pictured above left with her father Ralph) realized that the young woman who had called her father to arrange the interview was her friend from high school, Farhana Sobahn (below). Farhana is an ACORN Organizer and helped arrange StoryCorps interviews at the ACORN office for the past 3 weeks. After the interview, Shani and Farhana made plans to get together later that night. Just another way that StoryCorps brings people together!

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StoryCorps facilitators Jason, Nadja, and Elaine decided to take advantage of Atlanta’s nightlife by attending a play called “False Creeds” at the Alliance Theatre. The Alliance website described the play as “a Western, an historical drama, and an exposé of a forgotten and covered up episode in U.S. history. It’s also a deeply personal journey for an African-American young man in search of his roots, and the story of a young girl forced into adulthood by tragedy.” That’s right, we took a break from collecting oral histories of African Americans to go see a play about the oral history of African Americans. Pictured above is the cast of “False Creeds”.

Photo courtesy of www.alliancetheatre.org

Another community organization that StoryCorps Griot has reached out to is the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History (AARL), which offers specialized reference and archival collections for the study of African cultures. The library has been an exemplary partner, hosting at least one StoryCorps field recording a week, filling every interview slot for those days, and even helping fill interview slots in the GriotBooth, which is parked down the street at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site.

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Etha Hall,71, talked about coming to Atlanta as a young girl, after being beaten by whites in rural Alabama, and being enamored by the flashy lights and the self contained community that is the Historic Fourth Ward.

Etha
A poem

So we moved to
Sweet Auburn Avenue
Where the lights
Were bright
And the people
Were dark
And I could go
To a store owned
By one of us
Walk right up
To the counter
And say
Hay jack gimme
A colllllllld Coke

And ironically get a
Warm smile
In return

poem by Jason Reynolds

The Griot Initiative is unique in many ways. Not only can participants come to the GriotBooth to record an interview, StoryCorps facilitators go out into the community every day with portable recording equipment. Pictured above are StoryCorps facilitator Elaine Davenport (center) with participants Carlton Cox (left) and Sam Rush (right) at Task Force for the Homeless, an organization that is hosting StoryCorps recordings in Atlanta. We are working with several Atlanta organizations and institutions, like the Task Force, who provide a room to record in and help organize interviews for people in their community. This service is similar to the StoryCorps Door-to-Door program. If you’d like to bring StoryCorps facilitators to your organization and record interviews of people in your community, please visit the StoryCorps Door-to-Door page of our website.

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Nazeeh Rasheed grew up on his parents’ farm in rural Georgia, constantly working hard and sometimes getting into trouble for being too curious. He admired his father’s entrepreneurship but was also critical of his acceptance of the status quo, of segregation. As a young man living in Atlanta, like many his age Nazeeh explains, he worked towards overcoming the fear that had dominated African Americans and killed their spirit. To Nazeeh, the Nation of Islam seemed most apt to answering his longstanding questions and obtaining respect for the community.

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Gloria Anne Jackson (above, left), Madeliene Jackson-Smith (center) and Bennie J Rivers grew up in what they describe as a loving and blessed family of ten children. “Bless my children, and my children’s children”. -That is the prayer that their father, a preacher, would utter every Sunday morning over breakfast and it is a prayer that is being passed down through generations in this family. The sisters’ father, although very loving, was rather strict and austere. Their mother, however, would compensate a lot for this by allowing, for example, her children to dance the twist at home and even joining in.

It was revealed that Gloria, in particular, loved dancing. Indeed, as the sisters talked about attending Ebenezer Baptist Church and recalled their relationship with the King family, Gloria shared a long kept secret…

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General Larry Platt (above) returns to our StoryBooth this year. Last year he was interviewed by facilitator Nadja Middleton. This year, General Platt was interviewed by Kevin Cook (below), a great admirer of his, while Nadja facilitated. General Platt talked about how Reverend Hosea Williams bestowed upon him the title “General” for his heroic efforts during the Civil Rights struggle.

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95 year old Myrtis Walker is an American griot. Echoing traditions from the continent where her grandfather was captured and enslaved, Walker came to StoryCorps to tell her daughter the stories of their ancestors. In West Africa, griots serve as the repository of a community’s history and often recount the stories through poetry and song. Here in Atlanta, GA, Mrs Walker recounted the story of her grandfather who called himself Romulus, choosing a “White man’s” name to counter the “White man’s” nicknames “nigger”, “boy” and “coon”. Mrs Walker also sang a gospel she sometimes sang at her husband’s church and a childhood favorite: Bessie Smith’s “All you women better leave my man alone”.

Mrs Walker sometimes combines apparent seriousness with sharp wit. For example, she recalled time wasted looking for babies in cabbage patches and how a marriage counselor’s intervention finally ended her search. Her daughter, thinking she was concluding the interview says: “Well now you know where babies come from.” To which Mrs Walker replies: “I know where mine come from but I don’t know about other women”.

… to come share their story and standing by to assist: StoryCorps facilitators (l to r) Nadja Middleton, John Randolph, Elaine Davenport and Jason Reynolds.

StoryCorps is back in Atlanta, GA, this time with a new initiative aimed at collecting African American stories. Our recording booth is parked once again by the visitor center of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site at 450 Auburn Ave.