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.
“The Race and Change Project” 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.
