Is Oral History White? The Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore, an Oral History Project from 1976, and Best Practices Today

Abstract

ABSTRACT What can a focus on a past oral history project on the Civil Rights Movement teach us about best practices and an antiracism approach today? This article grew out of the 2020 Oral History Association virtual meeting panel, “Is Oral History White? Documenting Race in Three Baltimore Oral History Projects,” and examines that question by investigating the McKeldin-Jackson Project, an oral history of the Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore produced by the Maryland Historical Society in 1976. The article has a forward-looking focus on lessons that we might glean as oral historians today, lessons that apply not only to historical societies or to oral histories of the Civil Rights Movement, but also to museums, archives, and public history projects of all kinds. The paper expands on the question of whether oral history is white by interrogating what whiteness means for the field of oral history. Through this lens, three themes from the McKeldin-Jackson Project emerged: white interviewer/Black narrator dynamics; the biographical framing of two public figures (Theodore McKeldin and Lillie May Jackson), and why that was problematic; and what I call the project’s invisible architecture—the white foundations, including the historical society itself, that made the project possible. Finally, I offer some possible solutions for both individuals and institutions to work toward in building antiracism practices in oral history.