Internship oral presentation becomes full performance in Process Series

A project done by interns at the Southern Oral History Program inspired the Black Pioneers Project, the next installment with the Process Series, a performing arts program on campus.

The Black Pioneers Project is a performance based on interviews with members of the Black Pioneers — a group of some of the first black UNC students.

The program interns undertake a research project every semester along with completing a required seminar.

Taylor Livingston, the field scholar at the Southern Oral History Program, directed the seminar for the interns about the Black Pioneers.

“I told (the interns) the context of integration in college campuses and at UNC and told them how to do oral history interviews as well as gather archive line information,” Livingston said.

Each intern interviewed two Black Pioneers and pulled pieces of those interviews together into a script which they performed at the center at the end of their internship semester.

Joseph Megel, the artistic director for the Process Series, said he was moved by the work the students did in fall 2015. He helped the spring 2016 interns put their performance together.

“I think that this project is a way of sort of interrogating our own history and what happened and owning it,” Megel said.

Renee Alexander Craft, then interim director of the Southern Oral History Program, brought the idea of expanding the oral presentations to Megel.

Megel said his partner, Elisabeth Lewis Corley, became the adapter and editor of the two scripts and together they expanded the interns’ original scripts.

“They were going for something like a 20-25 minute presentation at the end of the semester and we’re still in the throes of expanding it to cover a wide variety of topics and experiences of the students who broke the color line,” Megel said.

The performance will be a compilation of the stories of the Black Pioneers and life at UNC at that time.

Rachel Seidman, the acting director of the Southern Oral History Program, said the interviews showed a lot of hurt that has happened that has not been acknowledged by the University.

“The story of the Black Pioneers is not well-known and the power of their narrative — both the significant pain and suffering that they went through, as well as their commitment to the University — are important pieces of the University’s past that are remarkably salient in the current moment,” Seidman said.

Seidman said oral history gives the opportunity to make sure these stories are heard and for lessons to be learned from them.

“We need to find ways of acknowledging and celebrating (history), being critical of it, understanding it and honoring it,” Megel said.

Many of the performers in the Process Series show are UNC graduates, including E. Patrick Johnson and Craft.

“Understanding history, understanding legacy, understanding where we got to and how we got to where we are, on the shoulders of whom, is really important,” Megel said.

The Black Pioneers Project will be performed Nov. 4 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 6 at 3 p.m. at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.

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