The audience will listen to excerpts from oral histories turned into podcasts of former students and employees of the Grand Rapids Public Schools from 1970-2010s. The researchers will generate a discussion with the audience around interpretation and methodology.
ABSTRACT: What happened to the Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS) after the 1968 closure of South High, the school with the highest concentration of Black students in the district? The closure was also a part of the city's one-way busing plan in which only Black students were bused to White schools. Part of a larger book project on the history of this urban school district in Michigan, “GRPS Uncovered” is an oral history project gathering and preserving the stories and memories of students and employees from every decade (1970-2010s) and turning the interviews into podcasts. In collaboration with the Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives and the Grand Rapids People’s History Project, we seek to archive these oral histories as podcasts, inviting the community to collectively make sense of how GRPS evolved over time. This oral history project relates to the conference theme of “Bridging Past, Present, and Future” because we seek to understand the district’s history as it relates to current issues and/or problems facing the community. We hope the project will enable the community to examine the relationship between schooling and the wider development of the city, race relations, and the city’s unique racial politics. Thus, the project could potentially result in community-led actions, policymaking, or the formulation of new groups, alliances, and/or projects. This listening session will engage the audience with interpretation, as well as contemplate our methodology and efforts to invite the community to interpret history and to bridge the past, present, and future.
