July 13, 2023
SIU’s Paul Simon Institute virtual talk will feature The HistoryMakers founder
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Julieanna L. Richardson, creator, founder and executive director of The HistoryMakers, the largest national collection of Black video oral histories since a Works Progress Administration initiative in the mid-1930s, will join Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute for a virtual discussion on July 24.
Richardson and Shaw, institute director, will discuss Richardson’s inspiration to design, collect and distribute a video oral history collection with more than 3,000 interviews of African Americans, including Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Maya Angelou, Harry Belafonte and Ernie Banks. The virtual discussion is at 9 a.m. The online program via Zoom is free and open to the public, but registration is required. The conversation is part of the institute’s Understanding Our New World series.
“Julieanna Richardson is a true pioneer who continues to provide the nation — and the world — a great service by chronicling the stories of African Americans,” Shaw said. “The stories that The HistoryMakers has assembled include those of world-famous celebrities and also of lesser-known Americans who made incredibly valuable contributions to our world. Julieanna continues to tell what she calls America’s essential and missing stories.”
The HistoryMakers is a national 501 (c)(3) nonprofit Chicago-based “research and educational institution committed to preserving and making widely accessible the untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans.” The organization’s website notes that interviews began in 2000 to address “the lack of documentation and preservation of the African American historical record.” Utilizing a first-person perspective, the testimonies “reveal the broad scope of African American men and women who have made significant contributions to American life, history and culture during the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.”
The organization’s work on documenting Black history was recently featured on “60 Minutes” and NPR’s WBUR. Prior to The HistoryMakers, the organization notes the only large-scale attempt to capture Black history from a first-person perspective is the WPA Slave Narratives housed in the Library of Congress.
Richardson graduated from Brandeis University with a degree in theater arts and American studies, then received a law degree from Harvard Law School. Prior to founding The HistoryMakers in 1999, Richardson worked as a corporate lawyer, television producer and cable television executive.
Attendees are encouraged to submit questions for Richardson on the registration form or email questions to paulsimoninstitute@siu.edu.
More information, a list of the institute’s upcoming events and past speakers and events are available.