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• 1 2020-03-10T20:07:58+00:00 About this Project 51 plain 1687 2020-04-22T14:27:25+00:00

  "And to me, you have to have somebody that remembers and tells it. And if you don't, it fades into history. I mean, it just fades away"

  
  Purpose of this Project

  The goal of this project is to document the history of Shule Ya Kujitambua, a school precariously situated in Oberlin, Ohio during the 1970s. Through this project, the audience will gain a greater understanding of the intersections of race and education in the town of Oberlin, home to a college credited with accepting the first Black students into higher education and a reputation of progressiveness that precedes itself. Instead of viewing Oberlin as a racial utopia, we interrogate the racial history of the public school system and explicate the outstanding ways that Black residents confronted the lack of support provided by the public schools.
  
  This project is significant because it adds to the narrative of Oberlin as a complex town. This school is an example of resistance to race-based educational inequities by Oberlin’s African American residents. These residents were at the cutting edge of racial equality. Shule Ya Kujitambua, an Afrocentric school in Oberlin during the 1970s, was a marker of the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements in Oberlin. Oberlin is considered a ‘racial paradise’; as a result of this narrative, historical resistance to racism is often disregarded. Opened roughly ten years after the school board’s decision to effectively integrate the elementary schools, Shule demonstrates a need for an educational model that recognizes and considers race rather than ignores it. The school’s evolution disrupts the narrow, binary narrative of segregation as “bad” and integration as “good.”

  Theory and Methods

  “How do artifacts become instruments of power? How do power relations materialize in artifacts?

  
  
  In this project, community members are the experts and the sources for the research; transcripts from oral history interviews act as both expert testimony on the Oberlin racial landscape, as well as material objects that become part of the archive. We are complementing archival sources and the greater historiography of northern segregation and African-centered educational models with the lived experience of community members who still occupy this space. Through this model we hope the audience reconsiders their production and engagement with history. Further, the dissemination of research via a public website reinforces the mission of making this story accessible to the very people it impacts. This is a community-based learning project that utilizes oral history and material culture theory. Through these frameworks, I analyze research with dynamic, multidimensional understandings centered around personal experience and sense of place. Further, the use of a public website to disseminate our research reinforces our mission to make this story accessible to the very people it impacts.

  Positionality

  I am approaching this project as a middle-class white woman. I am in no way an expert in this historical moment, and have been incredibly lucky to have the trust, support, and partnership with community members and Oberlin College faculty. Without this, my project would not have been possible. I have created this project as completion of my Archaeological Studies and History majors, though this is not the main goal of this website. The intention of this website is to make accessible a formalized archive and narrative of this moment in history to those who were involved with or are interested in Shule Ya Kujitambua.
  
  Additionally, this project primarily highlights the voices of Dr. Kofi Lomotey - the school's founder, Ms. Phyllis Yarber - a parent of a child at the school, and Ms. Angela Yakemba Padilla - a former student at the school. With limited resources and time, I was unable to interview more people involved with the school.

  If you or someone you know participated in the Shule and would like to be featured on this website, please email me at murrayellab@gmail.com 

  
  This project was made possible by a generous grant from the Oral History in the Liberal Arts Association (OHLA), a Mellon Foundation-funded initiative of the Great Lakes College Foundation. 
  
  
• 1 2020-04-06T21:38:48+00:00 Acknowledgements 8 plain 2020-04-22T16:23:03+00:00 When I started this project a year ago, I was daunted by the undertaking. Telling a story with such complexity was out of my wheelhouse - and still is. This would have been impossible without the support, crtitism, confusion, curiosity, and love from so many people. This list is only a small section of those who contributed to this project, some without even knowing it. 
  
  Deverrick Macallister and Johan Cavert - that one radio show reshuffled everything in my mind. Thank you for talking everything through together, it was such a joy to be present for that moment. Randy Clancy, thank you for helping me acknowledge my whiteness, for making the space to understand my role in this project, and for giving academia context. 
  
  I would like to thank Liz Schultz, Maren Mckee, Ken Grossi, Megan Mitchell for helping me comb through the archives. The time that you each gave me was astounding, you have shown me what joy and excitement lies within archives. Thank you for letting me glimpse into your world of expertise. A huge thank you to Brooke Bryan and the 2020 OHLA cohort. Sitting in that warm room in Yellow Springs, Ohio could not have been more enjoyable. Thank you for the crash course on oral history and storytelling. 
  
  To Dr. Kofi Lomotey, Ms. Phyllis Yarber, and Ms. Yakemba Padilla, thank you for sitting down with me to share your stories. Thank you for responding to endless emails and looking through transcripts. I am incredibly grateful for the excitement, care, and joy you brought to this project. Your generosity was endless.
  
  I am eternally grateful for the education I recieved from Professors Pablo Mitchell, Renee Romano, Herrod Suarez, Ellen Wurtzel, and Tamika Nunely. Your courses have encouraged me to think differently, listen more patiently, and love literature more fully. Thank you for challenging me, for working with me, and for being there even when I say the wrong thing. You have each taught me how to wait calmly at the front page of a book, to allow its characters to tell their story, and to acknowledge the beauty that lies within complexity. 
  
  I must thank Tania Boster and Amy Margaris for working with me for nearly a year and a half on this project. They have given me every form of support, curtailed every idea that certainly would not have worked, and have led me through dark paths of theory and academic literature. Thank you Tania and Amy, you have been the best role models anyone could ask for.
  
  Julia Rohde, thank you thank you thank you. Thank you. Its almost impossible to synthesize what your presence has meant to me over the last year (without using passive voice, but I'll try...). Endless hours sitting in front of a microfiche were suddenly fun, transcribing interviews not excruciating, staying engaged in class a possibility. The love, joy, and silliness you brought to this project gave it life. I underestimated how difficult it would be to do a project on my own, thank you for telling it to me exactly as it is.
  
  To my family, thank you. Mom, Dad you have given me space to do the work I need, to encourage me, and to facetime just enough. It is impossible to express in words what the support you have given me over the years has been. You have both encouraged me to think for myself, to find creative solutions, and to always find the humor in whatever I do. Ruby, thank you for bringing me back to earth when I've needed it most (and for the endless kitty pics). Thank you for being my best best friend. You're the greatest bug. 
  
  Endless late-night gratitude to you, Liz Amber and Noa Gordon-Guterman. Sitting three to a couch that barely holds one has brought about the biggest belly laughs, nilla-wafer combinations, and foot-holds. The feeling of home that your voices bring to me makes my heart breathe big. I could not comprehend this exact flavor of happiness until you both came into my life in exactly the way you have. It is incomrpehsible the ways we have rotated around one another for so long. The way that we have landed is oh so sweet.
  
  To Simon Printz - if I could fit it on a postcard I would, but there are both too many words and not nearly enough.