Dr. Kitty Oliver is an author, oral historian, media producer, and recording artist as well as a former journalist and university writing professor. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a Ph.D.in Comparative Studies focusing on race and ethnic communication and gender studies. The memoir Multicolored Memories of a Black Southern Girl chronicles growing up in Jacksonville during segregation, and living an integrated life and her collections of oral histories which have served as models for community oral history projects throughout Florida and other states.
Dr. Kitty Oliver’s books, as well as her public television productions and radio webcasts on Race and Change, have been used widely by schools and colleges and in the Lift Every Voice Writing Project community presentations that she conducts nationally. She is founder of the landmark cross-cultural Race and Change Initiative oral history archive in Special Collections at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale and in the American Folklife Center’s Civil Rights Project. The archive features life histories and racial experiences of over 125 self-described Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, Caribbeans, and Asians living in Florida.
Dr. Oliver’s work has been featured on CNN, and she shares Race and Change memories in the Ron Howard documentary film on the Beatles “Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years” and the film “Oscar Peterson Black + White,” both streaming on Hulu. www.kittyoliveronline.com.
