Welcome back, friends!
It has been a week of milestones – launching this website and blog, and installing a gallery exhibit for an oral history project. Wait, a gallery exhibit? My younger self, who enjoyed the substance of politics and public policy, might have been baffled at how I ended up with a show that, to my chagrin, references me as an artist.
Well, six years ago, I found myself at the bill signing of legislation to protect the right to abortion. I represented The Womxn Project and saw myself as the de facto designated activist. While I was honored to be at the signing, I could hardly represent the numerous leaders, volunteers, and activists who worked to make the passage of this legislation possible and weren’t in the room. Some of those folks gathered on the steps of the Rotunda during the signing.
Also missing at the signing were many supportive legislators. The actual bill being signed only included five House sponsors, leaving the longtime House and Senate sponsors and most of the co-sponsors off the historical document. The image often portrayed in the news is of a few people standing behind the Governor, but the reality is that it took many people to make that victory a reality.
Shortly after the bill’s passage, Dr. Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur, a sociology professor at Rhode Island College and an activist at the time, suggested that we write-up what we did. Similarly, Dr. Robert Widell, Jr., a professor of history at the University of Rhode Island and Director of the URI Oral History Lab, suggested documenting the recent events through oral history.
It took five years to merge these two ideas and bring this project to fruition, but over the past year, I have been working on an oral history project in collaboration with Dr. Arthur and Dr. Widell with the help of interns and volunteers. The project, “Looking Back, Learning Forward,” aims to capture the oral histories of activists and political leaders with diverse perspectives, including those supporting and opposing efforts to protect the right to abortion in Rhode Island from 2017 to 2019, as well as those who have been historically involved since Roe. While the focus is often, understandably, on the bill signing – the victory – there were so many milestones involved in that campaign. Listening and reading these oral histories reminds me of the many milestones that were part of that process – protesting, running for office, writing postcards, knocking on doors, and showing up at the State House. This work was built upon sustained activist efforts in Rhode Island since Roe v. Wade.
Putting a few of those oral histories up on the walls in the Ritual Space Gallery was a full-circle moment. Finally, some of those unheard and unseen deeds and words were being shared through this interactive exhibit. For those of you local to Rhode Island, you can learn more and visit the show. The details are here.
And here is a sneak peek!
This seating area is designed to recreate a potential setting where someone might share their oral history. It includes all the necessary paperwork to support both the interviewer and the interviewee.
Here are the four approved oral histories we were able to post for the exhibit. And on the left, you will see highlights. Reading these oral histories is intended to foster dialogue and discussion, allowing visitors to the exhibit to highlight passages and words that resonate with them.
And finally, there are a few questions for people to respond to and share with sticky notes on the wall, and a QR code to share your oral history.
Activism, politics, civics, and democracy are all team sports. The outcomes we see as milestones are often built on a series of unseen and frequently undocumented events. If we could pull the curtain back on this unseen work, would more people be interested in engaging with the process? Would more people feel and see the impact of their work?
I hope this community-engaged research project, with its closer-to-real-time sharing of oral histories, provides people with a variety of ideas about how they can participate in democracy. I also hope that someone interacting with the exhibit leaves feeling like they had a conversation with another Rhode Islander and with a few new ideas about engaging with democracy.
And I wanted to leave you with the idea that you don’t have to create an oral history project both to name and claim your own work and contributions, and those of others, but rather how you might reflect mindfully on your own milestones: how did those seeds get planted, nurtured, and watered? What ended up growing out of these moments? How can you honor what was provided and shared with you?