Black Storytellers of San Diego

Southern Border African/African-American Oral Traditions/Language 2009

The Black Storytellers of San Diego’s (BSSD’s) mission is to promote storytelling through education and entertainment, inspire through the power of the word, and keep African/African American culture and tradition alive and connected to the present through the telling and teaching of stories. BSSD tellers are acutely aware of the importance that storytelling has played in communities around the world.

In 2012, ACTA’s Development Program provided support for a member of BSSD to attend the National Association of Black Storytellers in Baltimore, Maryland.

In 2009, BSSD received a grant from ACTA’s Living Cultures Grants Program to support Hush-Somebody’s Calling My Name, a research and performance project based upon the history of African Americans in the West, who in 1833 came from Philadelphia and have continued this migration into the 21st century with evacuees from the New Orleans and Gulf floods.  Oral histories of elders born in San Diego were incorporated into the storytelling project.