The Neighborhood History Project
The Neighborhood History Project provides youth from South Memphis and Highland Heights the opportunity to spend their summer learning about and documenting thier neighborhoods' rich histories.
Leader
Kenny Latta
Location
2000 N Parkway Memphis, TN 38112
About the project
How much do you know about your neighborhood's history? The people who used to live there? Events that may have happened there? The businesses? The schools?
Through the Neighborhood History Project, the Center for Transforming Communities (CTC) partners with grassroots organizations in two Memphis neighborhoods - South Memphis and Highland Heights - to provide high-school-aged youth the opportunity to spend their summer learning their neighborhoods' stories. Our Neighborhood History youth interns work with college students at the Crossroads to Freedom initiative at Rhodes College to learn how to conduct original research, collect video oral histories, and archive historical materials on the Crossroads digital archive.
At the end of the summer, they share what they've learned at a Neighborhood History Celebration, where their family, friends, and neighbors come together to learn about and celebrate their shared history.
We have offered the Neighborhood History Project every summer since 2013, and we've seen how transformative this experience is for the youth interns, for the adults who are interviewed, and for their communities.
Thank you so much for your support!
To learn more about our many project partners, click here:
The Steps
The Neighborhood History Project is a 6-week summer internship program. CTC will work with our project partners throughout the month of May to recruit youth for the program, who will attend an orientation session on June 10, then begin work the following week.
On Mondays and Fridays they will join the Crossroads to Freedom fellows at Rhodes College for training in research methods, archiving, and other technical skills. On Wednesdays they will be in their neighborhoods conducting video oral history interviews and visiting historical sites.
The program will conclude the week of July 18, when the youth interns host a Neighborhood History Celebration in both neighborhoods.
Why we‘re doing it
Memphis is a city with a rich history - a history that is rooted in our neighborhoods. Yet so many of us live our whole lives without ever exploring that history.
The Neighborhood History Project provides young people in two of our most historic neighborhoods - South Memphis and Highland Heights - with the resources and skills that they need to explore their neighborhoods' histories, and to share those stories with us.
This is a tremendous learning opportunity for the youth interns, who walk away with new skills in:
Research
Writing
Videography
Video editing
Web design
Archiving
Interviewing
They also leave the program with a deeper understanding of their place and how the past informs where we are today -- and where we might go tomorrow. And through the Neighborhood History Celebrations they share that understanding with all of us.