History From the Bottom Up
Colleen Scheck, senior producer
“Take your minds and think through them. Take your hearts and set them on fire. Amen.” —Studs Terkel
I was excited to see that our show with Studs Terkel is listed on HBO’s resources page for the documentary “Studs Terkel: Listening to America,” which debuted this past weekend. Even more exciting, though, is the announcement that roughly 6,000 hours of his interviews will be digitized by the Library of Congress.
A quote from the trailer: “History is so often told from the top down through the voice of statesmen and politicians, but what Studs has done is to tell history from the bottom up.” Amen.
Faith as It’s Lived
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor
Watching singer Stevie Wonder’s acceptance speech of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, I was struck by the tenor and natural way he spoke about his faith and invoked God’s name.
“But what’s really exciting for me today is that we truly have lived to see a time where America has a chance to again live up to the greatness that it deserves to be seen and known as, through the love and the caring and the commitment of a president, as in our president, Barack Obama.
It’s exciting ‘cause I know my children will be able to say, ‘I was born when there was the first African American president. Yeah, I can do that too!’ But not only can they do that, but all children of all various ethnicities understand that they can speak in truth. They can talk about loving and caring about this country. They can talk about being a united people of the United States of America. They can live that dream that Dr. King talked about so long ago.
And if those in this country and throughout the world — you can put down your spirits of hate and open up your hearts to receive God’s ever commitment of love, then we can be a united people of the world. If we can think that big, and feel that strong, then I believe, as is said to me by my God, impossible is unacceptable. We don’t know the miracles that will be bestown on us because of that.”
Library of Congress Seeking Inaugural Sermons and Orations
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor
A colleague at the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) alerted us to an effort taking place at the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center. They’re looking for audio and video recordings of sermons and orations commenting on President Obama’s inauguration.
This sounds like an exciting project and something to which I’d love to see our readers and listeners contribute. Following is a portion of the press release with details:
It is expected that such sermons and orations will be delivered at churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship, as well as before humanist congregations and other secular gatherings. The AFC is seeking as wide a representation of orations as possible. This collection is one of many oral history and spoken word collections at the AFC that preserve American emotions and memories of important cultural events.
Congregations and groups interested in contributing to this once-in-a-lifetime documentary project are asked to record sermons and orations delivered during Inauguration Week 2009 and donate them to the Library of Congress. The donated recordings will be preserved at the AFC in order to enhance the nation’s historical record and preserve the voices of religious leaders other orators for researchers and scholars of the future. After being processed by archivists, the collection will be made available to scholars, students and the general public.
Individuals and groups interested in contributing to the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project are asked to submit audio and video recordings made in digital or other approved formats. To be accepted into the collection, the recordings must be of sermons and orations that were delivered to congregations and other audiences between Friday, Jan. 16 and Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009.
In addition to audio and video recordings, the AFC is collecting written texts of sermons and orations (submitted in the form of print or electronic media), as well as printed programs from the events during which the sermons and orations were delivered. All submissions must be postmarked by Feb. 27, 2009, and must be accompanied by a signed release form and completed data form, found on the AFC Web site, www.loc.gov/folklife/.
For additional information about the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project, including the technical specifications of the recordings that can be accepted, downloadable copies of the required forms, and instructions for submitting collections, please visit www.loc.gov/folklife/, or call the center at (202) 707-5510 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday – Friday, Eastern Standard Time.
