The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) is the official

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people w ...

program at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

. With over 6,500 interviews and more than 150,000 pages of transcribed material, it is one of the premier oral history programs in the United States. SPOHP's mission is "to gather, preserve, and promote living histories of individuals from all walks of life." The program involves staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and community volunteers in its operation.

History

The program was founded by Dr. Samuel Proctor in 1967 as the University of Florida Oral History Program. Its original projects were collections centered around Florida history with the purpose of preserving eyewitness accounts of economic, social, political, religious and intellectual life in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

and the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

. Major projects focused on Native American,

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distin ...

, and Florida county-specific history. Much of SPOHP's early work was initiated by grants and support from the Doris Duke Foundation. Dr. Samuel Proctor, the UF Oral History Program's original founder, was a prominent scholar of Florida history and a pioneer in the field of oral history in the United States. Dr. Proctor taught in the History Department at the University of Florida for fifty years, serving as the first official University of Florida Historian and Archivist and holding chairs as Distinguished Service Professor of History and Julian C. Yonge Professor of History. He was also the Director of the Center for Florida Studies and the History Curator at the

Florida Museum of Natural History The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) is Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural-history museum. Its main facilities are located at 3215 Hull Road on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville. The main pub ...

. Following Dr. Proctor's tenure, the directorship of the program was taken up by Dr. Julian Pleasants, who renamed the program in Proctor's honor and lead the program from 1996 to 2007. The program's current director is Dr. Paul Ortíz. Dr. Ortíz is an associate professor in the History Department and affiliated faculty with th
Center For Latin American Studies
an
African American Studies Program
who also currently serves as the President of the Oral History Association.

Awards

In October 2013, the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program was recognized by the Oral History Association with the Stetson Kennedy Vox Populi ("Voice of the People") award for outstanding achievement in using oral history to create a more humane and just world. In April 2014, UF'
Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures
awarded SPOHP "Best Cultural Event" at the annual Noche de Gala ceremony for the production of the documentary
"Siempre Adelante: A Look at Faith and the Immigrant Struggle."
In August 2015, the

Society of American Archivists The Society of American Archivists is the oldest and largest archivist association in North America, serving the educational and informational needs of more than 5,000 individual archivist and institutional members. Established in 1936, the orga ...

recognized the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and it
Latina/o Diaspora in the Americas Project
with the 2015 Diversity Award, for demonstrating significant achievement in archival activism, education, outreach, and service, based on long-term impacts improving and promoting diversity.

Field Research, Public Programs, and Education Initiatives

The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program strives to promote the thousands of oral narratives entrusted in its care, making existing and emerging collections accessible to a wide audience by uploading transcripts of interviews, maintaining digital archives, creating educational podcasts, and organizing public programs and events. SPOHP also produces a newsletter, featuring new research and student work, that is published each semester. SPOHP promotes the craft and intellectual traditions of oral history through university seminars, classes, and community-based workshops. SPOHP offers an internship class for 12-16 undergraduate students each semester, involving training in oral history practices and fieldwork experience, and also operates a program for volunteers on a rotating semester basis. The program consults on an ongoing basis with local historians, civic leaders, and educators across the country interested in initiating oral history projects in their towns and municipalities. In November 2014, the

Museum of Florida History The Museum of Florida History is the U.S. state of Florida's history museum, housing exhibits and artifacts covering its history and prehistory. It is located in the state capital, Tallahassee, Florida, at the R. A. Gray Building, 500 South Bron ...

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the populatio ...

opened its first-ever civil rights exhibit, "Civil Rights in the Sunshine State," taking a frank look at African American history from the 19th through the 21st centuries. SPOHP's African American History Project contributed oral history recordings and related materials to the exhibit, and Dr. Ortíz played a role in two successive civil rights panels hosted by the museum during

Black History Month Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently ...

in February 2015. As of Spring 2015, ove
60 original SPOHP podcasts
are available to a global audience through the

University of Florida Digital Collections The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) are supported by the University of Florida Digital Library Center in the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) comprise ...

and iTunes. These podcasts are created by staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and community volunteers with the intention of making oral histories shareable in an easy-to-access format. Most podcasts are under 15 minutes or less to facilitate easy access to local history for students, teachers, and the general public.

BA/MA 4+1 Combined Degree Program

In October 2013, the U
History Department
announced a ne
combined Bachelor's and Master's Degree Program
in oral history. The program, open to students working in any field of modern history, is designed to train students in oral history practice to make history accessible to a broad audience and connect scholars and departments to their local communities. The track is open to students beginning in Spring 2014.

Events and Public Programs

In the 2012–2013 school year, SPOHP hosted a variety of public events, including "Inside the Activists Studio: A Sit-in with Margaret Block," "Near Andersonville: Winslow Homer's Civil War" with Dr. Peter Wood, "Rebels and Runaways: Slave Resistance in 19th Century Florida" with Dr. Larry Rivers, "The Wonder of Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of Dr. David Boder" with Dr. Alan Rosen, "The Feminine Mystique at 50/Madmen, Working Girls, and Desperate Housewives: Men, Women, and Marriage in 1963 and 2013" with Stephanie Coontz. In Fall 2013, SPOHP premiered the original documentar
"Siempre Adelante: A Look at Faith and the Immigrant Struggle"
on October 1, produced using interviews from the immigrant communities of Alachua County and Gainesville. It is SPOHP's third full-length documentary, featuring narratives of four immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala who share the struggle of living undocumented in Alachua County, and have been supported by their faith in the face of fear and discrimination in the United States. In connection wit
UF Libraries' Department of Special & Area Studies Collections
SPOHP celebrated the donation of Stetson Kennedy's personal papers to the University of Florida on October 22. The all-day event concluded with an evening panel in Pugh Hall featuring FIU professor Marvin Dunn, folklorist Peggy Bulger, and sociologist Lucy Anne Hurston, niece of

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo. The most popular of her four ...

, in a discussion of Kennedy's legacy moderated by Ben Brotemarkle, with an introduction from UF First Lady Chris Machen. In Spring 2014, SPOHP hosted three public programs. On January 15, 2014, renowned documentary filmmaker Tia Lessin screened award-winning film, " Trouble the Water" and hosted a symposium event. Through "Trouble the Water," New Orleans residents Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott documented the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina with their own original footage, as well as their struggle to recover in the following months. On March 12, 2014, SPOHP hosted a presentation by Vietnam veteran and political activist Scott Camil, who discussed his involvement in the Gainesville Eight trials and the donation of personal papers and documents related to the event to SPOHP and UF. Also on March 12, SPOHP organized a panel discussion with civil rights veterans to honor the 50th anniversary of the modern civil right movement in Florida. Students read excerpts from SPOHP's African American History Project (AAHP), providing the audience with more stories of others involved in the movement. US-NEH-2010Logo

For the 2015–16 year, SPOHP will be organizing a series of public programs and events surrounding Latino history in Florida, funded by the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

and

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...

'
"Latino Americans: 500 Years of History"
$10,000 grant. Sarah McNamara, SPOHP alumna and PhD candidate in history at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which r ...

, will coordinate the programming in connection with SPOHP'
Latina/o Diaspora in the Americas Project

Fieldwork Research Trips

During the Fall 2014 semester, SPOHP took a hiatus from planning public programs to plan publications and research trips, including the Virginia Fieldwork in Folklore trip in October 2014, organized by graduate coordinator Jessica Taylor. Taylor organized the trip to bring student interns and staff to work as field researchers in eastern Virginia, recording interviews related to folklore, traditional crafts, and rural development with residents of Mathews and Middlesex Counties. The trip featured two oral history open houses in Virginia, a methods workshop, and an interdisciplinary panel open to the public with folklorists, historians and archaeologists from th
Virginia Folklife Program

College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William II ...

, an
Fairfield Foundation
Virginia Folklife Program, Also during the fall semester, staff and students attended the 48th annual Oral History Association meeting in Madison, Wisconsin. During the Spring 2015 semester, SPOHP continued field research trips, including the Appalachian Social Change Project in February 2015, organized by graduate coordinator Jessica Taylor. Taylor worked with Dr. Scott Huffard of Lees-McRae College to bring student interns and staff to work as field researchers in the Appalachian region of North Carolina, recording interviews about rural development, folk culture, and tourism. Additionally, Latina/o Diaspora in the Americas coordinator Génesis Lara organized the 11-day Documenting the Ethnic Studies Struggle Through Oral History fieldwork trip, taking place over spring break in collaboration with

Prescott College Prescott College is a private college in Prescott, Arizona. History In 1965, the Ford Foundation brought together a group of educators from around the United States. Prescott College was the result of this gathering. The college was originall ...

. Student researchers on the trip will visit

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive ...

to focus on discovering the importance of

ethnic studies Ethnic studies, in the United States, is the interdisciplinary study of difference—chiefly race, ethnicity, and nation, but also sexuality, gender, and other such markings—and power, as expressed by the state, by civil society, and by indivi ...

education in the United States. Working in collaboration with students and faculty from Prescott College, UC-Santa Barbara, and the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25, ...

, and educators from the Tucson community, researchers will conduct oral history interviews and participate in workshops and panels. The trip sought to place University of Florida students and the Tucson community in conversation regarding their educational experiences and what role ethnic studies plays in students’ academic experiences.

Mississippi Freedom Project

SPOHP's annual research trip to the

Mississippi Delta The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yaz ...

builds its

Mississippi Freedom Project The Mississippi Freedom Project (MFP) is an archive of oral histories collected by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. The ongoing project contains 100+ interviews online and focuses on interviews with civil rights ...

collection, which focuses on civil rights history in the state of

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Mis ...

, and serves to place undergraduate and graduate researchers in a dynamic environment to gather hands-on experience and knowledge of progressive social movements. SPOHP has partnered with the Sunflower County Civil Rights Organization, a non-profit organization consisting of

Sunflower County Sunflower County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 29,450. Its largest city and county seat is Indianola. Sunflower County comprises the Indianola, MS Micropolitan Statistical Area ...

Civil Rights veterans, as well as th
Sunflower County Freedom ProjectMcComb Legacies Project
and Teaching for Change. The sixth annual research trip, in September 2013, was featured on the social justice networ
Groundswell.org
In Summer 2013, UF's George A. Smathers Libraries approved a mini-grant proposal to transcribe the SPOHP's Mississippi Freedom Project collection. The completion of this project was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer during the summer of 2014, when SPOHP presented the completed transcripts to veterans of the Mississippi Freedom Summer at their 50th anniversary reunion. This processing project leveraged existing knowledge, resources, and partnerships to promote online access to the Mississippi Freedom Project collection, including the development of a Freedom Summer LibGuide, two new podcasts, and a second phase which involves continuing transcription, Google Optimization of transcripts, and expanded Mississippi Freedom Project content on SPOHP's website. The latest MFP research trip, the eighth in the collection's history, took place June 15–20, 2015, and included interviews in

Natchez, Mississippi Natchez ( ) is the county seat of and only city in Adams County, Mississippi, United States. Natchez has a total population of 14,520 (as of the 2020 census). Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, ...

and in

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...

with the

Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...

and

Equal Justice Initiative The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is a non-profit organization, based in Montgomery, Alabama, that provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, poor prisoners without effective representation, and oth ...

. Oral history interviews for th
Mississippi Freedom Project are now available online
at the University of Florida Digital Collections website.

Collections

SPOHP is continuously engaged in active research projects designed to broaden the scope and scale of its collections, using contributions from undergraduate and graduate students as well as trained volunteers. SPOHP's collections house more than 6,500 oral history interviews on hundreds of different topics. The program also transcribes a portion of its interviews, which are available at the

onlin
Samuel Proctor Oral History Program Digital Collection
archive.

Veterans History Project

In 2000, SPOHP was approached by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The librar ...

to assist in efforts with collecting oral history interviews of World War II veterans. Since that time, SPOHP has been conducting interviews for the Library'
Veterans History Project
which is a project of its

American Folklife Center The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was created by Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife". The center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, established at the library in 1928 as a repo ...

. Ann Smith, a longtime SPOHP volunteer, is the project director. SPOHP has submitted over 100 interviews to date.

African American History Project

SPOHP'
African American History Project
(AAHP) began in January 2010 with the mission of collecting 400 interviews on local

African American history African-American history began with the arrival of Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Former Spanish slaves who had been freed by Francis Drake arrived aboard the Golden Hind at New Albion in California in 1579. The E ...

, giving particular attention to narratives on segregation under

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

, as well as

integration Integration may refer to: Biology * Multisensory integration * Path integration * Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome *DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technolo ...

and

Civil Rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...

. Originally conceived as the Alachua County African American History Project, AAHP quickly expanded into other parts of North and Central Florida, and now contains over 300 interviews with elders, leaders, activists, and other community members. A list of themes in the collection include: pre-integration black high schools and their contemporary legacies and significance; previously silenced narratives of racially motivated violence and repression; the quotidian socio-economics of providing for families and maintaining communities under Jim Crow; and the conflicted history of the University of Florida's interactions with and influence on local African American communities. Interviews from the collection were used in the UF School of Theatre and Dance's original presentation, "Gator Tales," in February 2015. The original play, edited and directed by Kevin Marshall, used oral histories from the African American History Project to share the unique experiences of the first African American students at the University of Florida, "bring ngvividly to life the voices of those who first struggled for civil rights and the generations that followed." "Gator Tales" ran at UF February 13–22, 2015, in Edinburgh, Scotland at the Festival Fringe in Summer 2015, and at the Oral History Association annual meeting in Tampa, Florida on October 15, 2015. SPOHP regularly develops documentaries, podcasts, and other audio selections to highlight interviews in its collections. SPOHP's archives also contains a variety of different sound files, including University of Florida speeches, videotapes of television interviews, Native American slides and photos, and recordings of music. Featured projects include:
African American History Project (AAHP)
* Coalition of Immokalee Workers * Community Organizing in America
Confederate Veterans
* Cold War History * Disability History * Duval County
Everglades
* Everglades Jetport
Fifth Avenue Blacks

Florida Business Leaders
* Florida Environment and Ecology * Florida Elections Project * Florida Opportunity Scholars * Florida Politics * Florida Ranching * Florida Water Management * Haitian Revolution Memories * Immigration History in America * Iraq Veterans * Korean War
Lumbee Indians

Mississippi Choctaw

Mississippi Freedom Project
* 9/11 Project * Nantucket Preservation * Ocklawaha River Project * Panama Canal Museum Project * Returned Peace Corps Volunteers * St. Augustine Civil Rights * St. Augustine Historic Preservation * Student Action with Farmworkers * Suwannee River * Tucson Ethnic Studies * University of Florida * UF College of Nursing * UF Healthcare Center * UF College of Law * United Faculty of Florida
Veterans History Project
* Vietnam War Veterans * Women Activists Feminists * Women's Police * World War II Veterans Featured interviewees:
*

Shelby Foote Shelby Dade Foote Jr. (November 17, 1916 – June 27, 2005) was an American writer, historian and journalist. Although he primarily viewed himself as a novelist, he is now best known for his authorship of '' The Civil War: A Narrative'', a three ...

* A. Quinn Jones * Stetson Kennedy *

Archie Carr Archie Fairly Carr, Jr. (June 16, 1909 – May 21, 1987) was an American herpetologist, ecologist, and conservationist. He was a Professor of Zoology at the University of Florida and an acclaimed writer on science and nature. He brought attenti ...

* Andrew Mickle * Wilhelmina Johnson * Farris Bryant * LeRoy Collins *

Bob Graham Daniel Robert "Bob" Graham (born November 9, 1936) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 38th governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States senator from Florida from 1987 to 2005. He is a member of the Dem ...

* Alan Bean * Margaret Block *

Lawrence Guyot Lawrence Guyot Jr. (July 17, 1939 – November 23, 2012) was an American civil rights activist and the director of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964. Biography Guyot was a native of Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he was rai ...

Bernie Machen James Bernard Machen (; born March 26, 1944) is an American university professor and administrator. Machen is a native of Mississippi, and earned several academic degrees before becoming a university administrator and president. Machen had been ...

* Sadie Darnell * Walter L. "Red" Barber * Dr. Robert Cade * General William Westmoreland * Dave Barry * William Dub Warrior * Medea Benjamin * Scott Camil *

David Barsamian David Barsamian (born 1945) is an Armenian-American radio broadcaster, writer, and the founder and director of ''Alternative Radio'', a Boulder, Colorado-based syndicated weekly public affairs program heard on some 250 radio stations worldwid ...

http://oral.history.ufl.edu/

External links

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program official website

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program Oral History Archives at UF's Digital Collections

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program YouTube Channel

References

{{Authority control Oral history University of Florida