HBCU Oral History Project

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2020 HBCU Oral History Project Story Harvest Postponed

IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: CHRYSTLE SWAIN, 512.635.2986 

MARCH 7, 2020. MARSHALL, TX – We are continuing to closely monitor information concerning coronavirus (COVID-19) and follow the guidance and expertise of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In San Antonio, seven people remain in quarantine in a military base hotel for further isolation due to their close contact with a person later confirmed to have the new virus. A local mall was shuttered and disinfected when that person visited the mall as well as other places. Due to this continuing threat, St. Philip’s College, one of our participating colleges, has restricted all school related travel including their participation in this year’s HBCU Oral History Project.

The City University of New York (CUNY), also one of our participating universities, has also restricted all student travel including their participation in this year’s HBCU Oral History Project due to four people from New York City having been diagnosed with Coronavirus.

A new participating institution, Southern University Shreveport, made a recommendation to postpone since their students would not attend due to virus threats.

U.S. health officials are investigating a possible case of the novel coronavirus after a Texas A&M University student contracted a respiratory illness within two weeks of visiting China.

The City of Houston and Harris County have diagnosed three cases of Coronavirus with another fourteen under observation and quarantine. Texas Southern University is also one of our participating universities and is located in Houston.

As more colleges, universities, and cities across the country grapple with the effects of coronavirus on their cities and campuses, many are canceling major events such as Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) as well as suspending student travel preemptively out of an abundance of caution.

And finally, Wiley College, this year’s host of the HBCU Truth & Reconciliation Oral History Project, has partially suspended student travel and is considering the necessity of a total ban. Closing off its entire campus to outside access as well as moving to an all online class schedule until this situation is contained is also under consideration by Wiley and closing off its campus effectively ends this years Oral History Project.

With these considerations in mind and due to preemptive moves by many cities and some of the universities and colleges in our consortium, and with the possibility of more schools moving to restrictions on student travel as well as the existential threat of the Oral History Project being a potential purveyor of the virus, the risk to the project is too great to bear, and thus, the US-CLO Board and its officers have made the decision to postpone this year’s Oral History Project until Spring 2021 back on Wiley’s campus. We believe it is in the best long-term interests of this project that this postponement be made.

US-CLO would like to thank all our university and college partners for their understanding and participation and look forward to seeing you next year. If there are any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

As it is in heaven,

Rev. Steve Miller, M.Div.
Ashoka Fellow
Founder & CEO
United States Christian Leadership Organizationwww.usclo.com

(713) 557-6520

Wiley College to host 2020 Story Harvest

IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: CHRYSTLE SWAIN, 512.635.2986 

MARSHALL, TX – The 4th annual HBCU Oral History Project Story Harvest will be hosted at Wiley College on April 2nd through April 5th at Wiley College in Marshall, TX. Under the direction of Rev. Steve Miller, the Project’s Founder, digitized oral history accounts will be gathered by the HBCU academy which include; Wiley College, Southwestern Christian College, Jarvis Christian College, Huston-Tillotson University, St. Philip’s College, and Texas Southern University. Participating partner universities included, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Baylor University and its Oral History Institute, City University of New York, and Guttman Community College of the NYU system. Using academic and historical research methodology, East Texas residents of color will be invited to share personal stories of racial discrimination. Students are trained to acquire these stories after being immersed in the context of historical racial discrimination and its origin. Students also receive extensive training in interviewing techniques and compassionate listening.

Participating scholars and their universities process the research which is archived in HBCU University libraries across the United States to be made available for posterity. The HBCU Oral History Project operates under the auspices of US-CLO, the United Christian Leadership Organization. Both organizations were founded by the Rev. Steve Miller, a 2018-2019 Ashoka Fellowship recipient. The $150K fellowship award recognized the value of healing the racial divide through story telling. Miller describes the weekend events thusly, “We digitally collect and chronicle stories of deep pain to pursue personal and national healing as well as to educationally inform policy changes within the political environment, and spiritual changes within the ecumenical community.”

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