{"id":91641,"date":"2022-10-11T10:57:33","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T15:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/?p=91641"},"modified":"2022-10-11T10:59:13","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T15:59:13","slug":"stories-of-east-side-high-school-to-live-on-through-new-digital-oral-history-archive-at-delta-state-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/2022\/10\/stories-of-east-side-high-school-to-live-on-through-new-digital-oral-history-archive-at-delta-state-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories of East Side High School to live on through new digital oral history archive at Delta State University"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]\n

CLEVELAND, Miss.\u2014<\/strong>Thanks to a grant from the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, a new digital oral history archive will be established at Delta State University (DSU) to document and preserve the legacy of Cleveland\u2019s East Side High School.\u00a0

Delta State\u2019s award-winning University Archive & Museum is already home to an East Side collection that features memorabilia associated with Cleveland\u2019s historically Black high school.<\/p>\n

After hosting a premiere of the documentary \u201cEducational Divide: The Story of East Side High\u201d before an enthusiastic crowd of more than 600 East Side alums and community members at the Bologna Performing Arts Center this spring, Associate Professor of English Don Allan Mitchell learned there were many more Eastside stories to tell.\u00a0

As Mitchell puts it, \u201cAfter the screening, the audience filled out surveys for the Mississippi Humanities Council, the sponsor of the premiere. While the feedback was positive, there was a consensus that a 65-minute film was only a start to telling stories of East Side to a wider audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

While financing a full-length film was a bit out of his wheelhouse, Mitchell said he began to think of creative ways to use Delta State\u2019s academic offerings to tell a fuller history of East Side High and the Eastside community. An oral history archive fits into Delta State\u2019s academic mission as a regionally-focused institution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done some prior film work with Assistant Professor of Art Ted Fisher and Delta State\u2019s Web Developer Gregory Braggs, so I assembled a team to start a small digital archive of filmed Eastside oral histories,\u201d he said.
\n
According to Mitchell, Wayne Dowdy at the Delta Center for Culture and Learning introduced him to Kristan McCullum\u2019s scholarship, which uses oral history methodology to examine Black schooling and community in Kentucky Appalachia during the civil rights movement.\u00a0McCullum\u2019s experiences have shaped the Eastside project in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a former Teach for America Delta corps member who trained on DSU\u2019s campus and lived in the region for five years, she has a genuine love of Cleveland and the Delta, so she agreed to be the assistant director of the project,\u201d shared Mitchell.
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McCullum has also spent the past four years as a doctoral student working on the Teachers in the Movement (TIM) oral history project at the University of Virginia alongside her advisor and the project\u2019s director, Dr. Derrick Alridge. The TIM project documents the stories of educators during the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Teachers in the Movement\u2019 is an exemplar in documenting, preserving, and sharing stories about Black education in the South,\u201d said Mitchell. \u201cWe hope to follow its practices on a smaller scale as we build the Eastside Project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Mitchell\u2019s goal is to build a community-driven archive that will film and preserve alumni and community members\u2019 oral histories, using DSU\u2019s skillsets and resources in partnership with the MDNHA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a partnership among several entities, in addition to the grant funding from the MDNHA. My home department, the Division of Languages and Literature, has been very supportive, as has Emily Jones, our university archivist, Heather Miller in our grants office, and several student filmmakers in the Department of Art, which is the home of the Delta Media Arts Center,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOff campus, we\u2019ve gotten help from the original filmmakers, David Ross and Dr. Eric Elston, who were introduced to the story of ESHS by Cleveland native Johnny O\u2019Bryant. East Side alums Dr. Ike Adams, Mack Sanders and Kierre Rimmer have also provided guidance. Our next phase is to spread the word and gather feedback about the project in Cleveland, as this is East Side\u2019s archive, first and foremost,\u201d he added. \u00a0

Like the current archive, the digital archive will eventually be open to all, and because it will be accessible via the internet, it will be available to anyone\u2014from researchers of the U.S. civil rights movement to East Side alums from coast to coast. The MDNHA grant will cover this initial startup phase.<\/p>\n

The first interviews will be conducted with Eastside community members spanning the school\u2019s history from 1957-2017. Because of the technical backline needed, these interviews will be filmed on DSU\u2019s campus at the Delta Media Arts Center.

\u201cIn this first phase, we are trying to build the necessary digital infrastructure,\u201d explained Mitchell. \u201cWe want to make sure we are doing everything correctly, so that Eastside stories will be preserved for many years to come. We really want ESHS alums to tell us what they want this archive to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyone with suggestions on what stories the archive should include can contact Mitchell and his team at\u00a0Eastside@deltastate.edu<\/a>, or they can call (662) 846-4060.<\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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