By The Beachwood Book Bureau
“StoryCorps, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to recording, preserving, and sharing the stories of people from all backgrounds and beliefs, will record interviews in Chicago from August 16 – September 15 as part of its cross-country MobileBooth tour,” the organization announced Tuesday.
Before we get to the details, let’s take a listen to a smattering of previous StoryCorps segments emanating from Chicago.
1. “Nineteen-year-old Noe Rueda talks to his high school economics teacher, Alex Fernandez about growing up poor in Chicago.”
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2. “Tyrese Graham remembers his first day as a teacher at John Marshall Metropolitan High School in Chicago.”
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3. “Studs Terkel from a 2005 interview recorded when a StoryCorps MobileBooth visited his home.”
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4. “Dorothy Glinton tells her son, Sonari, about becoming a manager at Ford Motor Plant in Chicago.”
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5. “William Haley and his brother Glen remember their father, Joseph Howard Haley, founder of Jackie Robinson West Little League in Chicago.”
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And now, the deets:
StoryCorps’ MobileBooth an Airstream trailer outfitted with a professional recording studio – will be parked at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, on the southeast corner of the Great Lawn. Reservations will be available at 10 a.m. CST on August 3 and can be made by calling StoryCorps’ 24-hour toll-free reservation line at 1-800-850-4406 or visiting storycorps.org. Additional appointments will be available on August 17, 2012.
StoryCorps’ MobileBooth interviews are conducted between two people who know and care about each other. A trained StoryCorps facilitator guides participants through the interview process. At the end of each 40-minute recording session, participants receive a complimentary CD copy of their interview. With participant permission, a second copy is archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress for future generations to hear.
StoryCorps is partnering with WBEZ 91.5FM, Chicago’s public radio station, who will air segments from a selection of local interviews recorded in the StoryCorps MobileBooth. Segments of select interviews may also air nationally on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.
Founded in 2003 by award-winning documentary producer and MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient Dave Isay, StoryCorps aims to create a growing portrait of who we are as Americans. By traveling to every corner of the country, StoryCorps currently has one of the largest collections of diverse voices ever gathered, with interviews collected from nearly 80,000 Americans in all 50 states.
“StoryCorps tells the true American story – that we are a people defined by small acts of courage, kindness, and heroism. Each interview reminds people that their lives matter and will not be forgotten,” said Isay. “By strengthening connections between people and building an archive that reflects a rich diversity of voices, we hope to build StoryCorps into an enduring institution that will touch the lives of every family in America.”
“Chicago’s ‘story’ is really the sum of its stories – the life experiences of the individuals who are our neighbors,” says Chicago Public Media’s Torey Malatia. “Each StoryCorps MobileBooth visit to Chicago has captured some of the most powerful and memorable accounts of everyday people in all of the MobileBooth’s U.S. travel. Fellow Chicagoans have shared stories from their past that sang to their souls. StoryCorps preserves these accounts to resound in our city’s future.”
In addition to a traveling MobileBooth, StoryCorps currently operates stationary recording booths at Atlanta’s public radio station WABE-FM and at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.
To ensure the diversity of participants, StoryCorps sponsors several major initiatives: Military Voices Initiative records the stories of post-9/11 veterans, active-duty service members, and their families; StoryCorps Historias collects the stories of Latinos throughout the United States and Puerto Rico; StoryCorps Griot preserves the voices and experiences of African Americans; StoryCorps Legacy provides people with life-threatening conditions and their families the opportunity to record, preserve, and share their stories; and the September 11th Initiative honors and remembers the stories of those most personally affected by the events of February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001.
Posted on July 25, 2012