Dr. Kitty Oliver Journalist Author and Oral Historian. A product of the civil rights era who came of age with integration in the U.S., she brings an innovative perspective to race and ethnic relations sharing research and stories across cultures in Race and Change dialogues where people can explore race in a hopeful, progressive way.

She is founder of the cross-cultural Race and Change Oral History Archive, the largest of its kind in size and scope, housed in Special Collections at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center. Her books and television documentaries are used widely in public schools, college classrooms, and community forums. She has also assembled an online resource of Race and Change programs for youth including an iTunes radio channelfeaturing stories of scores of native-born and immigrant college students and teens.

In 2019, she presented the first “Agents of Race and Change Award,” to encourage today’s youth who are building bridges across the racial and ethnic divide. Signup for the email list for information on how to submit a nomination.

Watch her in a brief but pivotal segment of the recent award-winning Ron Howard documentary film on the Beatles – “Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years” – where she shares personal experiences with the band and segregation in Florida. Her cross-cultural intergenerational race and ethnic relations work was also chronicled by CNN.

You can hear her original inspirational music on the CD “The Calling of Our Time” that she also shares as an entertaining aspect of her Race and Change public presentations.

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A product of the civil rights era who came of age with integration in the U.S., she brings an innovative perspective to race and ethnic relations sharing research and stories across cultures in Race and Change dialogues where people can explore race in a hopeful, progressive way.

She is founder of the cross-cultural Race and Change Oral History Archive, the largest of its kind in size and scope, housed in Special Collections at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center. Her books and television documentaries are used widely in public schools, college classrooms, and community forums. She has also assembled an online resource of Race and Change programs for youth including an iTunes radio channelfeaturing stories of scores of native-born and immigrant college students and teens.

In 2019, she presented the first “Agents of Race and Change Award,” to encourage today’s youth who are building bridges across the racial and ethnic divide. Signup for the email list for information on how to submit a nomination.

She founded the Race and Change Oral Histories archive with125 interviews on race relations, one of the only historical archives of its kind and scope, with stories of cross-cultural narrators in the U.S. and Ghana, West Africa prior to and after passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the mid-1960s, and the Race and Change Initiative, a multimedia site with archival oral history interviews and writings, video and Web radio programs with elders and youth. Oral histories are housed in Special Collections at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center, Fort Lauderdale, FL., and her work is part of the  American Folklife Center Civil Rights History Project archive.

PROJECT CONSULTANT:  Dr. Kitty Oliver is a Race and Change oral history consultant and member of the national Oral History Association who designs oral history programs and stages creative oral history presentations on race relations for communities in racial, ethnic, and cultural transition.

ONLINE RESOURCES: 

Radio Programs – Stories of Elders: Voices of Race and Change: Oral Histories and Podcast,  includes cross-cultural conversations and excerpts from the Race and Change Oral Histories archive.  For brief excerpts click here.

 Radio Programs – Younger People Talk About Race: Voices of Race and Change: The Younger Generation, with programs produced by college students and immigrant teens across cultures sharing their personal experiences with race and ethnic issues today from such perspectives as: Black Racial Identity, Indian Women Today, A Guatemalan Experience, A Haitian Confronts Bullying, Mexican-American: Overlooked & Undervalued, Middle Eastern (“What Are You?”), Colombian “Pressure to Fit ‘The Mold’”, A Chilean on Prejudice, and White Students on Race (“Parents’ Views Differ” and “Both Sides of Class”.  For additional brief excerpts click here.

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Dr. Kitty Oliver

A product of the civil rights era who came of age with integration in the U.S., she brings an innovative perspective to race and ethnic relations sharing research and stories across cultures in Race and Change dialogues where people can explore race in a hopeful, progressive way.

She is founder of the cross-cultural Race and Change Oral History Archive, the largest of its kind in size and scope, housed in Special Collections at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center. Her books and television documentaries are used widely in public schools, college classrooms, and community forums. She has also assembled an online resource of Race and Change programs for youth including an iTunes radio channelfeaturing stories of scores of native-born and immigrant college students and teens.

In 2019, she presented the first “Agents of Race and Change Award,” to encourage today’s youth who are building bridges across the racial and ethnic divide. Signup for the email list for information on how to submit a nomination.

Watch her in a brief but pivotal segment of the recent award-winning Ron Howard documentary film on the Beatles – “Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years” – where she shares personal experiences with the band and segregation in Florida. Her cross-cultural intergenerational race and ethnic relations work was also chronicled by CNN.

You can hear her original inspirational music on the CD “The Calling of Our Time” that she also shares as an entertaining aspect of her Race and Change public presentations.

The post Dr. Kitty Oliver appeared first on Kitty Oliver Online.

Race and Change Kitty Oliver. The Race and Change Initiative promotes a 21st Century discussion of race and differences in cross-cultural public forums using archival oral history interviews, video and Web radio programs, and creative performance presentations.

The director is Dr. Kitty Oliver, an author and TV producer and adjunct professor of oral history writing and race and ethnicity within the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. This site is generously funded by the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties and the Knight Foundation Fund, and New Visions Educational Foundation, Inc.

The Race and Change Initiative is an innovative 21st century approach to dialoguing about differences across races and ethnicities. It includes over 125 audio-taped and videotaped interviews of Whites, Blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, and Asians collected for the historical Race and Change Oral Histories archive, television documentaries, and podcasts, as well as university courses and community action workshops. The Youth Outreach Project creates intergenerational bridges across cultures as college students and teenagers of diverse immigrant backgrounds produce radio broadcasts and videos on the race relations experiences of their peers and elders.

“Race” is considered a metaphor for the differences that separate us, causing conflicts and creating inequities. Skin color, ethnicity, class, and even sexual orientation, across generations, also play significant roles in determining how certain groups are perceived as inferior or superior. From there, discriminatory patterns evolve. Race, as W.E.B. Dubois wrote, is the experience of discrimination.

Speaker, Writer, Scholar, Storyteller, and Performer 

Looking for something different? Oral Historian Dr. Kitty Oliver presents thought-provoking, entertaining, inspirational Race and Change Conversations that build bridges in culturally-diverse organizations and communities, and across generations.

Popular Presentations Include:

“Race and Change Across Cultures and Generations” – A multimedia program featuring older and younger voices – native-born and immigrant – exploring how far we’ve come and how progress can be made in a hopeful way that inspires our youth.  

“An Evening (or Afternoon) of Jazz and Multicolored Memories” – A professionally-staged cabaret performance of jazz vocals and oral histories on race relations across cultures that takes audiences on a poignant, inspirational journey through Race and Change experiences in America.

Take a look on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/DrKittyOliver/videos

Press Kit Available

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A native Floridian, she specializes in books, television and radio documentaries, and literary performances which explore race and ethnic issues in innovative ways. She has produced landmark research documenting the state’s mushrooming diversity that has become a mirror of American society and speaks widely on African American history.

She pioneered the cross-cultural “Race and Change” research project in South Florida that has expanded to Ghana, West Africa. The work has resulted in an historical archive of oral histories on race, a multimedia website on race, and consulting for historical, tourism, social service, and government organizations.

Her public television and video productions are used widely by schools and libraries She is producer and host of the 10-part series “Crossing Cultures/Changing Lives”, airing on WBEC-TV. In addition, she produces videos, podcasts, and blogs on race and ethnic relations and changes across generations. She is a lecturer and workshop leader on creative nonfiction writing techniques and memoir writing, and a professional jazz singer. She conducts community oral history field work and is a member of the Oral History Association.

For more information and bookings, contact:
Kitty O. Enterprises, Inc.1323 SE 17th Street, #108, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33316
(Phone) 954-382-0793

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The Race and Change Oral History Collection is an ongoing research study of race and ethnic relations, geographical history, and social change through the collection of oral histories of Whites, African Americans, and immigrants of various Hispanic/Latino, Caribbean and Asian backgrounds. Research sites have included the South Florida cities of Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Delray Beach, and Boca Raton; North Fork and Liberia, historically-significant Black communities; towns along Florida’s landmark Lake Okeechobee; and Ghana, West Africa where women who have experienced America’s racial climate shared their stories.

Oliver has taught field study courses for Florida Atlantic University’s School of Communication and Multimedia Studies where students have assisted in the collection of memories and produced projects for public presentation.

“The Race and Change Oral History Collection” has over 125 interviews on race relations and is one of the only historical archives which features multicultural-multiethnic narrators. Blacks, Whites, Hispanics/Latinos, Caribbeans, and Asians share their growing up experiences in various parts of the U.S. as well as other countries, and their encounters with race, focusing largely on the era prior to and just after passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the mid-1960s. The interviews, collected by Oliver and university students she has trained, are housed in Special Collections at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center, Fort Lauderdale, FL. and available to researchers.

For more information and bookings, contact:
Kitty O. Enterprises, Inc.1323 SE 17th Street, #108, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33316
(Phone) 954-382-0793

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(The University Press of Kentucky, $25.00/hardcover, $17.95 paperback) Kitty Oliver takes readers on a journey of exploration from her hometown of Jacksonville to the halls of the University of Florida as one of its first African American freshmen in 1965 and far beyond. One reviewer describes it as “a thinking woman’s memoir of a journey with many side trips” in her search for a sense of “home.” With humor, poignancy, and lyrical language (reminiscent at times of another Florida writer, Zora Neale Hurston), Oliver shares her passages from the “old world” to the new as an immigrant’s journey, indicative of the American experience. Blending past and present, she searches for roots from the Gullah or “Geechee” culture of South Carolina to the urban streets of northern Florida to the multicultural mix of South Florida, exploring America, Europe and Africa. These autobiographical essays are an upbeat journal – part travelogue, part memoir, described as “a delightful field trip” that’s educational, too. Part of the Women in Southern Culture series. For information and ordering contact The University Press of Kentucky (1-800-839-6855).

For more information and bookings, contact:
Kitty O. Enterprises, Inc.1323 SE 17th Street, #108, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33316
(Phone) 954-382-0793

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The Museum of Art – DeLand will present An Evening of Jazz and Multicolored Memories, A Performance by Dr. Kitty Oliver on Friday, March 1, on stage at the museum’s 600 N. Woodland Blvd. location.

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Kitty Oliver Lecture Performances. Kitty Oliver is an author and oral historian, TV and radio producer, Ph.D. race relations scholar and “inspirational jazz” recording artist who shares these talents in enlightening, non-confrontational lecture-performances and workshops that bridge differences and promote reconciliation and progress.

Entertaining and educational topics for civic, community, professional and business groups include:

Lecture-Performances and Workshops:

“Race” and Change: A 21st Century Dialogue on Differences (features cutting edge research)

Beyond Diversity: How to Be a Race and Change Agent (developing cultural bridges in your organization/community/personal life)

Answering the Call of Our Time: A Journey of Jazz and Memories.

The Baby Boomer Generation: A Multicolored Journey (also adapted for secondary school students)

Cross-Cultural Stories of Race and Change in the U.S. (also adapted for secondary school audiences)

How to Tell YOUR Stories of Race and Change and Make a Difference (also adapted for secondary school audiences) 

For more information and bookings, contact:
Kitty O. Enterprises, Inc.
1323 SE 17th Street, #108, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33316
(Phone) 954-382-0793
or email KittyO@KittyOliveronline.com

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Kitty Oliver Oral History Projects. Dr. Kitty Oliver is an oral history consultant working with educational and community organizations to develop and teach courses and conduct projects for the purpose of presentations to the public as well as archival research. She is a member of the national Oral History Association. Current projects:

“The Race and Change Initiative” is a multimedia project that promotes a 21st Century discussion of race and ethnic relations and differences through the innovative use of archival oral history interviews, video and Web radio programs, and performance presentations. Youth and adults share their stories.

The Initiative is based on The Race and Change Dialogue a model for talking about differences across races, ethnicities, and generations in public forums, and doing it in a non-confrontational, hopeful way.

Oliver has taught field study courses for Florida Atlantic University’s School of Communication and Multimedia Studies where students have assisted in the collection of memories and produced projects for public presentation.

“The Race and Change Oral History Collection” has over 125 interviews on race relations and is one of the only historical archives which features multicultural-multiethnic narrators. Blacks, Whites, Hispanics/Latinos, Caribbeans, and Asians share their growing up experiences in various parts of the U.S. as well as other countries, and their encounters with race, focusing largely on the era prior to and just after passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the mid-1960s. The interviews, collected by Oliver and university students she has trained, are housed in Special Collections at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center, Fort Lauderdale, FL. and available to researchers.

For more information and bookings, contact:
Kitty O. Enterprises, Inc.1323 SE 17th Street, #108, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33316
(Phone) 954-382-0793

The post Kitty Oliver Oral History Projects appeared first on Kitty Oliver Online.