By PHILLIPS COMMUNITY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT PARTNERS
Welcome back to the Phillips Community Oral History Project monthly update! This regular Column is an important part of the Project’s outreach to the Phillips Community. It is a space where we will share key progress milestones and keep the project accountable to the people of Phillips.
After a long planning period and the official launch in September, the Phillips Community Oral History Project is now well underway. We have several updates, but the most exciting of these is that interviews have begun! As of mid-September, the Project has interviewed ten people. Of those, three were planned in advance, including Steve Sandberg, Rico Morales, and Becky Gazca. Seven additional interviews were conducted across three pop-up interview events at Franklin Library. Look out for more pop-up events around Phillips; Community members are encouraged to attend and tell their Phillips stories!
Even at this early stage, the interviews include people from all four Neighborhoods of Phillips and cover about forty years of Community history. Stories have mentioned Phillips landmarks like Franklin Library, Mercado Central, Midtown Global Market, the Roof Depot, and East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI). Many of the stories talked about housing, experiences with homelessness, community organizing in Phillips’ public spaces, and the multicultural identity of our Neighborhoods.
The Project has two administrative updates to share. First, we have begun our residency with the University of Minnesota Liberal Arts Engagement Hub and finalized our Hub promotional poster. Additionally, we are nearing completion on legal documents pertaining to the interview materials we generate. We want to make sure, both legally and in practicing good community journalism ethics, that both the participants and the project own the rights to the records. This comes from a strong desire for participants to have power over their stories.
Looking forward, we are continuing to schedule interviews with individuals who have connections to the four Phillips Neighborhoods and are working on scheduling more pop-up events at various sites around the Community. This month, the Phillips Clean Sweep on October 11 will be one of those sites. If your business or organization is interested in hosting a pop-up location, let us know!
If you have any questions about the Project or are interested in participating or volunteering, please reach out to info@unitedphillips.org. Accountability to our communities is a core commitment of this Project, and we will let this Column be a place to have that dialog.
