During Black History Month, we often celebrate historic milestones and national leaders. But history is also created in living rooms, on front porch steps and around kitchen tables, through the memories of those who’ve shaped their communities in powerful ways.
A Roxbury-based initiative is making sure those stories are recorded and shared. By pairing younger generations with Black elders, they’re documenting personal histories to deepen our understanding of Boston’s past and present — and how it’s shaping our future. That’s why we’re celebrating this intergenerational storytelling initiative, called “Telling Lives, Living Histories,” on this week’s Joy Beat.
Karen Craddock, co-founder of the Wellness Collaborative and director of the Roxbury Oral History Project, joined GBH’s All Things Considered guest host Saraya Wintersmith to share more about the project. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Saraya Wintersmith: Let’s start at the beginning. What inspired the creation of “Telling Lives, Living Histories?” Was there a gap that you were hoping to fill in this community?
Karen Craddock: Absolutely, thank you. The vision for this is one that was kind of really birthed in my heart several years ago while reflecting on my own powerful family heritage and legacy right here in Roxbury, in Boston and the surrounding area. [That was] back in 2018, and it just kind of grew from there … just the importance of the core fiber of keeping our history alive across generations.
“I’ve always asked my grandparents, how did they get to where they are, and what their experiences were in developing a family and growing. That’s important. I was always interested in their background, how they came about and came this far.”
— Participant of ‘Telling Lives, Living Histories.’
Craddock: It really came up in my spirit in a way that was juxtaposed [with] what I was seeing — even in the area of the behavioral health field, of which I’m connected. There’s been this plague of disconnection and social isolation. We’re hearing the term “loneliness epidemic,” because there’s a vast, I think, impact across many specific members of our community: Our Black members, our community senior members, as well as our young adults.
I was witnessing the rapid shifts in our community neighborhoods, with the development going on. So many of our Black and brown elders who had shaped these communities, or were shaped by them, felt like it was really important for us to bring together these aspects of wellness, wellbeing and the importance of being rooted in place and sharing our stories across generations.
Wintersmith: Let’s talk a little bit more about the intergenerational aspect of this. How does bringing younger people together with elders change the way their stories are told and received?
Craddock: I think, oftentimes, when we think about sharing stories, and we bring together younger and older folks, there’s sometimes this kind of “sitting at the feet” — which is important, right? The younger people are kind of just listening to what is being shared. By design, the intentional way [this project] was designed was to really have it be intergenerational and that there was a sharing across [aspect].
I do think that, as younger folks, being able to hear and listen to the personal, lived and everyday experiences of what it was like for them growing up, and then also being able to share back a story… There’s something really powerful in that. Not only do they get to hear wisdom, but they see and get to claim their own inner power, their sense of resilience within their stories, and what is also connected across to this elder, where they may not have otherwise felt there was some point of connection.
Wintersmith: We said at the top that we often talk about national figures during Black History Month. It’s especially true this week with the death of civil rights icon Jesse Jackson. Talk about why it’s important to preserve these local personal histories, too.
Craddock: Absolutely. The framework and the design of this intergenerational story exchange is based on these ideas of people, places, pillars, pain and power. Even when I was thinking about the pillars, the great luminaries we know that have graced or come through our cities, there are often untold, unspoken and unsung folks from everyday life that have had a huge impact on our shaping of who we are as a community.
“What year was this? What else was going on in the country?”
“During the Civil Rights Movement. It was on the heels of this movement that was trying to make things happen in the country. It was trying times… But if you held strong collectively, you know, you have strength in numbers.”
— Participants of ‘Telling Lives, Living Histories.’
Craddock: Our everyday experiences are history in the making, and it’s a way to kind of bring it back home. We think of those in the larger, national, global landscape within our Black community, knowing also that there are those local folks from the church, or from the neighborhood, who were really instrumental in catapulting and catalyzing our community to go forward, whether it’s in education, in the arts, or in activism. It felt like another opportunity just to kind of get a peek in — and then touch and hear — the personal stories and those who played a role.
Wintersmith: You approach this work through a wellness lens, obviously, since you’re a co-founder of the Wellness Collaborative. In your view, is storytelling offering any healing for people and the communities where they live?
Craddock: Absolutely. There’s a phrase, or an understanding, that our narrative, our story, is the first element that we carry with us. It’s how we make meaning of life, and so being able to frame and understand it internally and then be able to offer and express it outwardly… There’s a neuroscience connected to that — how our brains and bodies are connected in understanding who we are in the world. Sharing our personal narratives absolutely has an impact on our physical, emotional and mental well-being.
At the Wellness Collaborative, our very ethos is one that is an interdisciplinary design. We think very much about wellness in a holistic fashion, bringing in multiple voices to co-create together. Storytelling is often a thread and a through line that goes throughout. We have these opportunities and platforms that provide folks a space to share about themselves and to listen to. It helps to move things forward around their whole well-being.
Wintersmith: Finally, from the stories you’ve heard, what moments of joy have emerged from this work that really stand out or spoke to you?
Craddock: I have been listening to — this is just the beginning of our pilot phase of listening — to these stories. There are themes that I’ve seen that connect across the arts and activism, elements of the power of education, culture and community, but ultimately, faith and family, right? Those really did come forward.
“All the wonderful times that you have over here, playing basketball… I guess that says a lot. That as we move along, everything shifts and changes, but we still carry those things that help to shape who we are.”
— Participant of ‘Telling Lives, Living Histories.’
Craddock: Already, I’ve heard that the experience of it, the process of it — not just the sharing of the stories — was creating something bigger than themselves. I think storytelling, and in this project in particular, strengthens our universal commonalities while also honoring our distinct journeys. We hold our stories, even of injustice, but also [of] undefeatable joy.
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