Attention UF students! We are now accepting applications for our Spring 2025 internship, HIS4944: Introduction to Oral History.
This 3-credit course meets weekly on Tuesdays from 1:55pm – 4:55pm.
This 3-credit course meets weekly on Tuesdays from 1:55pm – 4:55pm.
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program invites UF students, faculty, staff, and community members to our Fall Open House at 4pm in the Pugh Hall Ocora on Wednesday, September 11th.
This grant from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) will deepen work started on an NEH grant, Reanimating African American Oral Histories of the Gulf South. We will focus on the oral histories of students within Putnam County, Florida who attended the first Black schools in Florida before integration.
Read more "Linguistics and SPOHP Awarded Digital Justice Grant"
As part of UF Gulf Scholars, SPOHP and the Bob Graham Center for Public Service invite you to take part in an exciting oral history fieldwork trip from June 11-14, 2024. Apply by Sunday, May 19, 2024
The Brown Center for Leadership & Service, Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, and Beyond120 are partnering to host our Spring walking tour of UF historical sites centered around the April 1971 events of Black Thursday, the power of storytelling, and collective student organizing.
Read more "Spring Walking Tour: Black Thursday & Beyond at UF, on Feb. 29"
Taylor will present on her newest book, Plain Paths and Dividing Lines: Navigating Native Land and Water in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake Bay, on Tuesday, March 5th, at 6pm at the Matheson History Museum! We invite the public to join us for this free event. Dr. Taylor’s work explores escape attempts of indentured servants and enslaved people in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake.
Read more "SPOHP alum Dr. Jessica Taylor presents newest book"
Join SPOHP for our spring 2024 open house “meet and greet” on Tuesday, January 30th, from 3-5pm in the O’Neill Reading Room on the second floor of Pugh Hall!
Join us on Wednesday, February 7th from 5-7pm in the Pugh Hall Ocora. SPOHP’s Mississippi Freedom Project (MFP) brings students into the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta regions to conduct interviews with civil rights activists and organizers. Interested in taking part? Come and see how you can help document civil rights history with the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.
The Asian American History Project (ASAH) is an archive of Oral History interviews conducted with Asian Americans within the University of Florida, and throughout the greater South. The collection aims […]
The SPOHP’s Challenging Racism at UF public program series highlights stories of students, community organizers, faculty, and others who have been on the front lines of the effort to create a more just and welcoming world.
(Pictured: People gather after the “OverKome! Creating Pathways for Collective Community-Led Development” event.)
The Florida Queer History Project, founded in June 2016, is a growing archive of oral histories dedicated to highlighting the queer experience throughout the last century. The project aims to […]
The Joel Buchanan Archive of African American Oral History contains over 700 oral history interviews with African American elders throughout Florida and the wider Gulf South. These interviews and the overall projects […]
The Machen Florida Opportunity Scholars Program (MFOS) is a full grant and scholarship package that helps first-generation, low-income undergraduate students who are residents of Florida to earn a bachelor’s degree […]
Read more "Machen Florida Opportunity Scholars Program (MFOS)"
Native American history initiatives at SPOHP have focused on tribal history in the Southeast, archiving hundreds of interviews with the Catawba, Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Lumbee, Seminole, and Pamunkey since 1967. […]
In March of 2021, the coronavirus pandemic changed all of our lives. Samuel Proctor Oral History Program quickly adapted to continue documenting oral histories for all projects. As the lockdowns […]
Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP), UF Department of Linguistics, and George A. Smathers Libraries are proud to announce the establishment of an NEH-funded collaborative project entitled, Reanimating African American Oral […]
Read more "Welcome to Reanimating African American Histories of the Gulf South"
The Tidewater Main Street Project (TMP) is dedicated to documenting the traditions, folklore, and history of the rural communities in the tidewater region of Virginia […]
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) is proud to announce the establishment of the White Anti-Racist Activism Digital History Project. The White Anti-Racist Activism Digital History Project consists of […]
Read more "White Anti-Racist Activism Digital History Project"
Have you ever wondered how researchers collect primary historical evidence? Well at the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program we preserve history by interviewing the people who lived it! Come and see how you can document civil rights history at the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program in 2024.
Join SPOHP for our end of year social on Tuesday, December 5th at 12pm! You are cordially invited to the O’Neill Reading Room on the second floor of Pugh Hall for refreshments and merriment. We look forward to seeing you there!
HIS4944 Introduction to Oral History: Stories of Freedom Seekers and Freedom Conductors offers students training in the field of oral history, best practices and ethics, and fieldwork and processing. Email us to get on the waitlist for spring!
SPOHP researcher Dr. Yiorgo Topalidis was recently interviewed on Grecian Echoes – WNTN 1550AM Boston about the Ottoman Greeks of the US Digital History Project and the White Anti-racist Activism Digital History Project.
Read more "Meletios Pouliopoulos interviews Yiorgo Topalidis on “Mondays with Meleti”"
UF’s Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and UNC’s Southern Oral History Program are pleased to welcome Oral History Association conference attendees for refreshments and connections!
Read more "Oral History Association Conference Connections for Attendees"
SPOHP, in partnership with the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center, invites the public to “Welcoming Black Faculty to Higher Education: A Racial Justice Town Hall”. The event will be held at the Cotton Club Museum on Thursday, October 12 at 6 p.m. in person as well as in hybrid mode.
Read more "Welcoming Black Faculty to Higher Education: A Racial Justice Town Hall"
UF’s Ytori magazine highlights SPOHP’s Challenging Racism at UF initiative. “In oral history, we learn about the power of storytelling. This reveals truths that can sometimes be very uncomfortable,” SPOHP director Dr. Paul Ortiz told Ytori. “If we’re going to be a top-tier research institution, we need to use the tools of historical research to make the university a more welcoming place.”
Welcome back UF students, faculty, and staff! Please join us for our first event of the Fall 2023 semester, a SPOHP open house at 5 pm on Monday, September 25th in the Pugh Hall Ocora. Learn about our many projects and opportunities to travel, conduct field research, network, learn oral history methods, digital production skills, and more!
Vasilios Kosmakos, SPOHP researcher and founder of the Florida Naturalist Project, curated a digital exhibit about the “story of water in Florida” for the Matheson Museum. Explore the exhibit here.
Read more "“Interwoven Waters:” Using Oral History to Document Florida’s Waterways"
With a $350,000 federal grant, UF researchers will showcase recordings that tell how antislavery activists secretly assisted those escaping slavery.
Read more "Sharing the Underground Railroad’s Oral Histories"
On Tuesday, May 16th, 2023, the Delaware General Assembly honored the life of Thomas Garrett, who helped more than 2,400 people to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Click “read more” to learn more, or click here to follow Samuel Proctor’s National Park Service grant story.
Two years after the Ocoee massacre, and one year before the destruction of Rosewood by a White mob, one Black man stood up to the Ku Klux Klan in Jim Crow Florida. Black WWI Veteran Oscar Mack received a federal appointment as Postmaster in Kissimmee. One hundred years later, interviews with Mack’s descendants reveal the true story.
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) is thankful for all of the years and contributions that Ms. Hendrix continues to make to the program. Ms. Hendrix is an invaluable member of the SPOHP family. Without her hard work and support, SPOHP would not be where it is today. This piece by the Independent Florida Alligator recently featured Ms. Hendrix’s work.
On April 21 at 5:00 pm the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program will host a webinar on the experiences of White anti-racist activists in Alachua and Putnam counties from 1980 to the present.
Read more "Documenting White Anti-Racist Activism in the Gulf South"
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center, and the Iota Lambda Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. hosted “OverKome: Persevering with Collective, Community-Led Development.” The panel discussed issues of violence, housing, income, food, health, and education disparities.
Read more "OverKome: Persevering with Collective, Community-Led Development"
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, the UF Department of Linguistics, and the All Y’all Social Justice Collective presents Oral Histories as Curriculum: Bringing African American History into the K-12 Classroom, and educational and panelist event supported by the NEH Reanimating African Americans Oral Histories of the Gulf South grant project.
Read more "Bringing African American History into the K-12 Classroom"
Two years after the Ocoee massacre, and one year before the destruction of Rosewood by a White mob, one Black man stood up to the Ku Klux Klan in Jim Crow Florida. Black WWI Veteran Oscar Mack received a federal appointment as Postmaster in Kissimmee. One hundred years later, interviews with Mack’s descendants reveal the true story.
Read more "Film Premiere: Oscar Mack versus the Ku Klux Klan"
A panel of four distinguished spring activists and scientists will present their perspectives on evaluating the health of Florida Springs, followed by audience Q&A. Following the presentation, guests will have the opportunity to participate in one of three workshops: Science communication, wildlife photography, and communicating with different stakeholders.
Read more "The Future of Florida Springs: A Discussion on Springs Health"
Please join us on February 13, 2023, at 6 pm Eastern Time, at the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center for a community presentation about UF’s impact in the Black communities of Gainesville. The program will focus on housing, healthcare, and income inequalities. The event will take place at the historic Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center: 837 SE 7th Avenue, Gainesville, FL 32601
Read more "“OverKome!” Persevering with Collective Community-led Development"
Please join us on February 23, 2023, at 5 pm Eastern Time, either remotely or in person, for the book presentation and signing of Stayed on Freedom with the author Dan Berger. The book is the biography of Dr. Zoharah Simmons, who will be a distinguished guest and co-speaker at this event.
SPOHP’s UF students and staff are committed to SPOHP’s community-based oral history philosophy. This is the team of SPOHP’s student-staff members who participated in the Rosewood Commemoration Ceremony.
On Sunday, January 8 UF students participated in the commemoration of the massacre of the Black community of Rosewood.
Dr. Ortiz and Dr. Yolanda Chavez Leyva will provide the keynotes for the Southeastern Immigration Studies Association Conference taking place at the USC Upstate Greenville campus this coming April. Please follow the link for more information. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=151397484314340&set=a.129347893185966
Dr. Ortiz’s essay Pathways in Oral History was recently published in the US Latina & Latino Oral History Journal. Please follow the link to access the essay. https://www.utexaspressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.7560/OHJ606
Our first public event for the Challenging Racism at UF – 2023 Public Program Series was completed this past weekend in collaboration with the Cotton Club Museum. The cosponsored event by SPOHP and the Cotton Club Museum was a great success. To view the day’s proceedings, please click here.
Dr. Paul Ortiz and Dr. Yiorgo Topalidis are both presenting at this year’s American Historical Association Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Ortiz will take part in a roundtable titled, Unions in Higher Education—Historical and Contemporary Realities. Dr. Topalidis will present his recent work, Ottoman Greeks in New York City: Negotiating Identity with the Greek Immigrant Community during the Early 20th Century as part of a panel organized by the Modern Greek Studies Association.
In May of 2023, OGUS oral historians will visit eastern Pennsylvania communities to interview descendants of migrants from Asia Minor, Eastern Thrace, Imbros, Tenedos, and the islands in the Sea of Marmara. If you or anyone you know is interested in being interviewed, please fill in the interview scheduling form using the following link: https://ogus.portal.clas.ufl.edu/spohp-v2/welcome/contact-us/interview-scheduling/
Read more "Fieldwork Announcement: Eastern Pennsylvania, May 2023"
UF students will represent SPOHP at the National Park Service in Washington D.C. to conduct interviews with descendants of conductors and freedmen this coming January. UF students will also visit the Harriet Tubman museum as part of the collaborative grant between the National Park Service and SPOHP.
Read more "Fieldwork Announcement: Underground Railroad Project, Washington D.C. January 2023"
Please join us for our upcoming public program regarding our 15th annual trip to the Mississippi River Delta.
SPOHP’s Director Dr. Paul Ortiz discusses the legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune on the From Florida podcast. Click here to access the podcast.
SPOHP’s OGUS project is cohosting a one-day virtual conference on September 10 titled, Assessing the Ethnic Groups of the Late Ottoman Empire through a Decolonial Lens 1900 -1922. The link for the event can be found here.
The University of Florida’s African American and Native American History Task Force was created by President Kent Fuchs in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020. The task force’s responsibility was to create a detailed report pertaining to UF’s historical oppression of People of Color and Indigenous People. Click here to read the report.
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program mourns the loss of Thomas D. Rider, longtime Gainesville resident and former co-owner of Goering’s Book Store, who passed away on March 17. Mr. Rider moved to Gainesville in 1972 and started working at Goering’s Book Store, becoming the co-owner in 1981. The bookstore was for many years a treasure for readers and a true hub for the local community. Tom will be deeply missed by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.
List of speakers include, Rebecca Bakker (FIU – Digital Collections Librarian), Christopher Jimenez (Broward College – Library Faculty), Historian Emmanuel George, Author and oral historian Dr. Kitty Oliver, and SPOHP Director Dr. Paul Ortiz.
Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022 5:30 pm to 7:30pm
The Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center
For more information, please contact:Dr. Amanda Concha-Holmes amanda.d.concha.holmes@gmail.com
Come join us for SPOHP’s Spring 2022 open house on Tuesday, January 25 at 1:00 PM! We will be meeting in Pugh Hall with food, giveaways, and information about our program. See you there!
Art for All, a Museaum Nights Event
Join us on Zoom or SPOHP’s FB on January 27 at 3:00 pm to listen to co-editors Jake Gordon and Paul Ortiz and various chapter authors, as they discuss the making of the book African American Studies: 50 Years at the University of Florida.
Instructor: Cleary Larkin, Ph.D.
The Old Mount Carmel Baptist Church (dedicated 1944) became an epicenter of Gainesville’s Civil Rights movement when Reverend Thomas A. Wright arrived in 1962 …
Read more "Oral History of Civil Rights: Old Mt. Carmel Baptist Church"
Central Academy High School, in Palatka, Florida, was Florida’s first accredited Black high school. The school was founded in 1882 and accredited in 1924. In 1969, the school was integrated […]
The SPOHP Light! SPOHP’s End of Year Newsletter is here! SPOHP would like to wish everyone a holiday season full of health, happiness, and love! To learn about our recent […]
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program’s 13th annual Mississippi Freedom Project Research Trip is scheduled for the week of July 12 – July 19. To participate, please click here to […]
Celebrate Women’s History Month with SPOHP! SPOHP holds the largest repository of oral history interviews from the 2017 Women’s March on Washington in the nation. Check out our archives on […]
Watch the Peace Poetry Contest Winners Read Their Poems
Read more "Congratulations to the Peace Poetry and Scholarship Winners!"
Join the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program for a live YouTube Premiere where viewers will be able to live chat with producers, writers, and students involved in “The Making of […]
The Solidarity Sessions team is continuing its commitment to foster discussions centered on Black and Latinx issues. We intend to continue our originally scheduled Solidarity Sessions at the institutes whenever […]
Read more "Solidarity Sessions: Healthcare Disparities and the Coronavirus"
SPOHP Director Dr. Paul Ortiz is teaching a course this spring on oral history! This interdisciplinary seminar is an intensive introduction to the theory and practice of oral history. Students […]
Read more "Dr. Ortiz is teaching an intro to oral history course…"
Today is a great day in the state of Florida! I’m writing to inform you that the University of Florida Academic Senate has just voted unanimously to award Attorney John Due the Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters.
Read more "Civil Rights Attorney John Due Awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters"
Vietnam War Veteran and Veterans For Peace activist Scott Camil is the subject of a new graphic novel by Eve Gilbert titled Winter Warrior.
On Wednesday, October 16th, 2019, the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) at UF will host a public program at Pugh Hall titled “Mississippi Freedom Project Panel.” MFP is an experiential learning initiative where students interview civil rights movement veterans in the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta region. For 12 years, UF students have documented the efforts of teachers, museum professionals, high school students and others to apply the lessons of the freedom movement today. This summer, the SPOHP student team stopped in Montgomery to visit the Equal Justice Initiative’s “From Slavery to Mass Incarceration” museum and memorial to lynching victims. Next, the team traveled to Natchez, Mississippi to help restore a historically black cemetery.
In 2019, the University of Florida’s African American Studies Program will celebrate its 50th anniversary. The program began in 1969 and selected its first director in 1970. The late Dr. […]
Read more "UF African American Studies Program Celebrating 50 years"
SPOHP staffer, Roberto G. Muñoz-Pando, volunteers as the networking coordinator for the GRACE Grows Garden, part of the GRACE Marketplace. GRACE Marketplace is a one-stop homeless facility serving Gainesville and […]
Historic Haile Homestead Discussion: “Emancipation Betrayed” by Paul Ortiz
Read more "Historic Haile Homestead Discussion: “Emancipation Betrayed” by Paul Ortiz"
2019 marks the 10th anniversary of the African American History Project at the University of Florida. Funded by the UF Office of the Provost, this research initiative has resulted in over twenty-five public history programs, university seminars on African American studies, conference presentations and scores of community-based oral history and Black History workshops across the country. The new collection includes over six hundred oral histories with African American elders in Florida telling stories of memories of slavery, resistance to segregation, anti-black racial violence, the coming of the modern civil rights movement and narratives of Black and Latinx intersectionality among many other topics.
Read more "From Segregation to Black Lives Matter Symposium: free registration available now!"
For the Spring Semester 2019, SPOHP and African American Studies will be offering a course titled “A Black and Latinx History of the Gator Nation
Read more "New Course Offered: A Black and Latinx History of the Gator Nation"
SPOHP’s spring 2019 internship will focus on the Black Freedom Struggle in Florida, and will dovetail with our March 21-23 national symposium, From Segregation to Black Lives Matter. Students will […]
Read more "New Spring Internship on the Black Freedom Struggle in Florida"
Participate in a public dialogue between founding members of UF’s Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures, known as “La Casita,” and those who were there during its earliest years. Our participants include […]
Under the direction of Jeffrey Pufahl, the College of the Arts presented the premier of the documentary play Voices from the March in January 2018 during the closing ceremonies of […]
Read more "SPOHP Staff Members Featured in The Loop article, will appear in Muse Magazine"
The University of Florida’s 2018 Hispanic Heritage Month begins with the Opening Ceremony on Friday, September 14th. Doors open at 5:30pm at the Gator Wesley Foundation, semi-formal attire requested, featuring […]
We’d like to extend a big thank you to Dr. Oscar Llanque for coming to visit our Testimonio in the Americas class today, sharing his experiences and knowledge as an […]
Read more "Visting Scholar: Indigenous Experience in Guatemala"
For an easy way to navigate to SPOHP’s wonderful collection of videos, click on the YouTube icon in the upper righthand corner of our website. SPOHP’s YouTube channel can also […]
Click this link for a videotaped version (87 min.) of the 8/28 book talk presented at Smathers Library East by Dr. Paul Ortiz, Director of SPOHP, on his recent book: […]
The Veterans History Project is currently seeking volunteers for transcription, archival assistance, and organizing interviews.
The OHA’s Day of Giving last year raised money for scholarships to fund travel to the Annual OHA Conference for those in hurricane-affected areas. With matching funds provided by the […]
Smathers Libraries and the Digital Library of the Caribbean has been awarded a $231,093 National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to host a week-long in-person workshop and five additional virtual […]
Regina Phillips, Co-Director of the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center, an African-American history center in St. Augustine, Fla. and a SPOHP community partner, talks with NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro about how […]
SPOHP hopes you enjoy listening to a radio interview with UF history student Julian Valdivia on Gulf Coast Live on WGCU from July 31st, “UF Student Oral Histories From Community […]
Read more "UF Student Collects Oral Histories From Community Elders in Fort Myers"
Welcoming Gainesville and Alachua County and the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida are holding a public event titled “Home Away from Home: Remembering Refugees in Florida” on September 20, 2018 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm at Pugh Hall Ocora (296 Buckman Drive Gainesville FL 32611). The event will feature the oral history of refugees in Jacksonville, Florida, collected by Seyeon Hwang, a doctoral student in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Florida, and various state-wide and national efforts in refugee advocacy, followed by a talk-back session with refugees and refugee resettlement professionals from Florida.
Read more "Home Away from Home: Remembering Refugees in Florida"
Check out these reflections our students wrote just after their successful and exciting trips doing oral history fieldwork in the Mississippi Delta as part of our Mississippi Freedom Project! The […]
Read more "Check Out Our Students’ Reflections On Our Annual Mississippi Freedom Trip"
We have packed this Summer 2018 edition of our newsletter Moving Right Along full of the many things that have been going on at SPOHP. To take a look at […]
Read more "Try To Keep Up With Us! Our Summer Newsletter is Here!"
The Ottoman Greeks of the United States project (OGUS) is a multifaceted endeavor to preserve and promote the history of immigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the United States. The […]
Read more "Welcome to the Ottoman Greeks of the U.S. Digital History Project"
SPOHP staffers Holland Hall and Lara Alqasem stopped by the UF English Language Institute to provide a presentation and oral history workshop for the program’s international students, highlighting our collections […]
As we work diligently on our documentary project on the history of Institute of Black Culture and Institute of Hispanic and Latino Affairs, today we commemorate the one-year anniversary of […]