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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

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