The Oral History Archives at Columbia is pleased to open for researcher use the Sheila Michael Civil Rights Organizational Oral History Collection. Here archives assistant Keri Kelly reflects on notable themes from her close work with the collection. The history of the Civil Rights Movement is often narrated through its most salient events and heroic […]
Moonlight Inside the Library
In April 1897, the Spectator reported on the “two mysterious hemispheres” which had appeared in the entrance of the Library being built on Columbia’s soon-to-be new campus in Morningside Heights. First, the two halves were joined to form a globe. And then, this wooden sphere was hung from the ceiling and could cast a soft, […]
Oral History | What can oral history tell us about NYC’s likely next mayor Eric Adams?
From the New York Times: ‘Keep an Eye on This Guy’: Inside Eric Adams’s Complicated Police Career” For Mr. Adams, becoming a policeman was an act of subversion. Still angry over the beating, he saw “an opportunity to go in and just aggravate people,” he told Liz H. Strong, an oral historian at Columbia University, […]
Oral history | Congratulations to the 2021 Jeffrey H. Brodsky Oral Winner!
From our colleagues in the instructional arm of the Columbia Center for Oral History, the Oral History Master’s Program (OHMA)… After an incredibly challenging period in which fieldwork was disrupted, many of us suffered losses, and everyone experienced upheaval, the 2021 Brodsky Prize Committee (Peter Bearman, Amy Starecheski, and Carlin Liu Zia) was particularly impressed […]
Archival Documents Bring Light to Historical African American Legal Triumphs
A sheet of paper at Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library shows how a Black woman sought—and won—justice in 1791 America. This story originally appeared on Columbia News on September 16, 2021. […]