Texas Communities Oral History Project
Lead investigator: Max Krochmal
More information: http://professormax.org/oh/tx-cohp/
Founded in 2011 with support from the Center for Urban Studies at TCU, the Texas Communities Oral History Project (TX-COHP) connects TCU students to a variety of local and statewide organizations through active, community-based research. Students in Max Krochmal’s oral history reseach classes get an opportunity to leave campus and participate hands-on in the creation of new historical evidence and the documentation of the city’s underrepresented communities. The project centers on the gathering of oral history interviews and archival collections, the creation of public websites showcasing and interpreting these new records, and the staging of a series of community presentations and dialogues—all in collaboration with diverse organizations from the Fort Worth area. Student research in the spring 2013 offering of the course focused on Mexican American activism and the African American civil rights movement in Fort Worth. In the fall of 2015, students will launch new projects that tackle issues related to race and ethnicity, civil rights, immigration, labor and the working class, women and gender studies, sexuality, urban space, environmental justice, community activism, electoral politics, community art, or other pressing social problems. The interviews and other collected materials are preserved in the TCU Library Special Collections, the Portal to Texas History, and if applicable, the Civil Rights in Black and Brown website.