Oklahoma Oral History Research Program

04/13/2026

The Stillwater's Washington School oral history collection is comprised of interviews with community members and alumni of the Booker T. Washington School in Stillwater, Oklahoma. View the collection online. https://library.okstate.edu/search-and-find/collections/digital-collections/washington-school

04/07/2026

Congratulations Laura!

Last summer, we had the honor of working with Laura as one of our oral history fellows. She conducted six oral history interviews across West Texas as part of her thesis research. Her interviews were archived with the OOHRP and will eventually be publicly available through the OSU Library.

Congratulations to Laura Navarrette on successfully defending her thesis titled "La Raza Sound: The West Texas Musical and Chicano Movement." Her thesis discusses the West Texas Chicano Movement and the music that reflected their determination in each city: El Paso, Lubbock, and Abilene. Each chapter highlights organizing against local government, fighting for political power, fighting against police brutality, and fighting against Chicano discrimination in school, using songs in each chapter to highlight these stories.

04/02/2026

Help us welcome our visiting scholar and Oklahoma State University alumna, Dr. Asia Thomas! From 10-11:30 a.m. in the Edmon Low Library Peggy V. Helmerich Browsing Room 205, Dr. Thomas will present a public lecture titled, “Listening on the Porch: Oral History, Speculative Writing and Restorative Educational Practice."

Later this evening there will be a public exhibit, panel event and dinner, with prior registration, titled “Black and Indigenous Feminism/Womanism and Oral Tradition in Education.” From 5-7:30 p.m. on the OSU-Tulsa campus in the B.S. Roberts Room, North Hall 151, let us welcome Dr. Thomas on the panel; alongside her will be Dr. Reanae McNeal, Sarah Price and Dr. Autumn Brown.

The exhibit, “Oklahoma Freedwomen: Survivance, Land Memory and Afro-Indigenous(Her)stories” is part of Dr. McNeal’s Bearing Witness Series that employs a Restorative Healing Justice framework to address the ongoing impact of colonial, historical and gendered racial traumas.

These events are co-sponsored with the Laurence L. and Georgia Ina Endowed Professor of Rural Teacher Education, the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program and the Department of Gender, Women’s and Sexualities Studies. Register now for dinner after the exhibit and panel at https://okla.st/4t9D3v8

03/29/2026

Dr. Asia Thomas, Oklahoma State University alumna and Assistant Professor of Educational Studies at August University in Georgia, returns to OSU on Thursday, April 2. Her talk at the Edmon Low Library, ‘Listening on the Porch: Oral History, Speculative Writing, and Restorative Educational Practice,’ will be held in the Peggy V. Helmerich Browsing Room from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Dr. Thomas’ talk positions the porch as a historically international space for Black agency, ancestral memory and collective theorizing. Drawing from Black feminist, endarkened approaches, it conceptualizes “porch conversations” as method and methodology rooted in life histories, oral traditions and speculative writing that centers the wisdom of Black women teachers in the rural South.

Building from this framework, this talk examines its pedagogical implications for teacher education through a graduate-level education foundations assignment using oral histories and speculative writing to uncover local school histories, situate them in broader understandings of history and imagine reparative futures through restorative educational inquiry.

As part of Dr. Reanae McNeal’s ‘Bearing Witness’ series, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa hosts public exhibit, “Black and Indigenous Feminism/Womanism, and Oral Tradition in Education.” The panel event and free dinner are on Thursday, April 2, from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the B.S. Roberts Room (North Hall 151).

Dr. Asia Thomas, Dr. McNeal, Sarah Price (Mvskoke citizen), and Dr. Autumn Brown will serve on the panel, with moderators Tandra Morris (Cherokee citizen) and Dr. Erin D**e.

Dr. McNeal’s series employs a Restorative Healing Justice framework to address the ongoing impact of colonial, historical, and gendered racial traumas.

Please RSVP if you intend on attending the free dinner: https://okla.st/4t9D3v8

These events are co-sponsored by the Laurence L. and Georgia Ina Endowed Professor of Rural Teacher Education, the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program, and the Department of Gender, Women’s, and Sexualities Studies.

03/12/2026

Step inside the Melvin B. Tolson home and uncover the stories within its walls. Dr. Melvin Tolson Jr. reflects on his father’s legacy and his own experience as an graduate in 1950. https://dc.library.okstate.edu/digital/collection/ostate/id/8189/rec/6

02/28/2026

02/28/2026

Bringing oral histories to community conversations.

Such a wonderful discussion tonight about art, life, culture, community, and the legacy of Gordon Parks with , and the great Don Thompson whose photographs are in our permanent collection.

Thanks for the collab !

Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges.

02/27/2026

View the collection of interviews at https://library.okstate.edu/search-and-find/collections/digital-collections/dustbowl/

When Dr. Jennifer Paustenbaugh noticed the majority of first-person documentation of the Dust Bowl highlighted only men’s experiences, she began to research. After beginning an oral history project at the OSU Library and focusing on the lives of women who lived through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, almost 150 women were interviewed by Dr. Paustenbaugh, Dr. Shelly Lemons and Dr. Steven Kite. Now, 25 years later, the resulting oral histories have been used extensively since their creation.

Join us on March 6 from 2:30-4:30 p.m. as members of the panel discuss the work of this project and its many uses in the archives, classrooms and research.