Tucked off in the Troy Moore Library overlooking the city, associate professor Kathryn Nasstrom of the University of San Francisco discussed oral history and its influence on Civil Rights scholarship. Nasstrom is also editor of the “Oral History Review,” and explained during her presentation at Georgia State how there are three stages of oral history.
A packed library listened to her discuss how stage one ran from the 1960s to the 1980s, stage two ran from the 1980s to the 1990s, and stage three goes from the 1990s to the present. She explained how early Civil Rights decisions and legislations defined the first stage, local heroes and studies within communities defined the second stage, and how modern opposition to the movement defines the third stage of present.
She also references the importance of Charles Payne’s “I’ve Got the Light of Freedom” as a “fashioned interpretation of how the past lives on in the present”. She ended her discussion with a short Q&A period, and a photo op.
