The Great Listen (StoryCorps)
In 2015, StoryCorps launched The Great Thanksgiving Listen, a national initiative that encourages young people — and people of all ages — to create an oral history of the United States by recording an interview with an elder, mentor, friend, or someone they admire.
In this episode of the StoryCorps Podcast, an excerpt from the new Thanksgiving special with NPR. Hosted by Audie Cornish, with commentary from Dave Isay, it’s full of stories from and about the people who inspire us most.
We’ll hear from Blanca Alvarez, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1972. More than 30 years later, she came to StoryCorps with her daughter Connie to talk about that time in her life.
Later, Dr. Carla Hayden uses the StoryCorps App to record the voices of the Baltimore community after the death of Freddie Gray in 2015.
Another conversation comes from Aidan Sykes, who visited the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Jackson, Mississippi, when he was just 9 years old, to interview his father, Albert. He had a lot of questions.
Tune in to hear several other stories that speak to the power and importance of listening, especially during the holidays. [Text Source: StoryCorps]
StoryCorps is committed to the idea that everyone has an important story to tell and that everyone’s story matters. Since 2003, this remarkable project has been collecting the stories of everyday US-Americans and preserving them for future generations. In New York City and in mobile recording booths traveling the country — from small towns to big cities, at Native American reservations and an Army post — StoryCorps is collecting the memories of Americans from all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. Since its founding, StoryCorps has helped nearly 700,000 people across the US have meaningful conversations about their lives. The project represents a wondrous celebration of shared humanity, capturing for posterity the stories that define people and bind them. These recordings are collected in the U.S. Library of Congress and in StoryCorps’ online archive which is now the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered. [Text Source: Penguin Press]
“Listening Is an Act of Love”
