Episode 3: Why Haven't We Written Down Our Family's Oral Histories?

Weeping willows, a beautiful part of the South Alabama landscapes.
South Alabama is an important part of my family's oral history.

They do it all the time, MawMaw and PawPaw...talking, rambling, sharing words of wisdom, telling stories that crack us up or horrify us entirely. And we listen. Or we tolerate, absorb, laugh, or shudder. But most importantly - we end up missing all of those stories the moment they are no longer with us.  

In the African American community - and many communities across the country - oral history is embedded in the fabric of our culture. It's a longheld tradition we've inherited from ancestors who walked the earth thousands of years ago. And for that reason alone, it must continue. Still...we need to start wrting things down. 

Because memories fade, or get questioned and challenged. But if we had the written proof of at least our point of view, we'd have something tangible to support those memories and keep them fresh and refreshed. Even if we don't like everything they had to say, or the exact way they remembered the past - having a record of their perspective is still valuable as a reminder of how much we are like them and how much we changed. The written record could prove to us the ways in which we upheld family traditions, and the ways in which we broke generational curses. 

On an individual level, we need to write down those stories and details of our lineage, to uphold and enhance our own identity and sense of belonging. We need to remember their strength, so we can be inspired in our own resilience, knowing where it comes from. We need to review their bad choices, so we can make better choices. We need to see how well they did in the face of their struggles, so we can do even better on the stepping stones of all they passed to us. 

As families, we need to preserve traditions and strenghten family bonds, by having those records that remind us of the ties to unite us. We need to know our family dynamics in order to understand the family dynamics. We need the context of who we are and how we came to be. 

But we can't do that, if we start forgetting the details. 

So the call to action is this - let's write down what we know, learn more about what we don't, and convert all of that knowledge into records and written narratives that we can leave to our children and their children. 

Why haven't we written down our family's oral history? Whatever the answer is to that question, we must challenge that practice and change our focus. We have to start writing and preserving our stories, before others start to think they have the right to tell us who we are...from their point of view.