Plainfield Black History Reference
A Cross-Collection Finding Aid for Archival Resources at Plainfield Public Library
Oral History Collections
The entire Oral History Collection includes interviews as part of the StoryCorps Griot, Latinos in Conversation, and Hispanics in America initiatives, as well as the Plainfield Voices project.
StoryCorps Griot, 2007
In early 2007 the Plainfield Public Library was asked to host two days of oral-history interviews, conducted by StoryCorps, as part of StoryCorps’ Griot project. A Griot (pronounced gree-oh) is a storyteller, a position of honor in West African tradition, who hands down family and community history from one generation to the next.
StoryCorps Griot is an initiative to ensure that the voices, experiences, and life stories of African Americans will be preserved and presented with dignity. The Griot Initiative also documents the varied voices of people with roots in the African Diaspora living in the United States. Griot recordings are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and in a special collection at National Museum of African American History & Culture. You can learn more about the current projects here.
In our project, a Plainfield historian arranged to capture the stories of African-Americans in Union County. The Library received copies of the 17 Plainfield interviews, which it later transcribed through funding from a Union County History Grant. Listen to the interviews here.
Plainfield Voices: 1967 Plainfield Uprising
In 2015, the Library began to create an audio archive of personal interviews with clear transcriptions of residents’ memories of the civic upheaval that took place in Plainfield during July 1967. We hoped to collect as much first-hand information as possible about this event.
This program was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State, and administered by the Union County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs.
Listen to the interviews here.
If you would like to share your story with us, please contact us.