The Friends of Negro Spirituals’ oral history project In Our Own Words–The Negro Spirituals Heritage Keepers was recently awarded the Oral History Association’s Elizabeth B. Mason Project Award for 2008. The Oral History Association presents this award to recognize outstanding oral history projects throughout the English-speaking world.
Supported in part by ACTA’s Living Cultures Grants Program in 2007, In Our Own Words–The Negro Spirituals Heritage Keepers documented the oral histories of ten heritage keepers of the Negro spirituals tradition in the Bay Area. The collected transcripts and interviews on DVDs are available to the public through the Oakland Public Library’s History Room, the African American Museum and Library, and Mills College. (Read an article about this project here.)
ACTA wishes to congratulate the Friends of Negro Spirituals on receiving this honor.