Oral History Society Conference
London Metropolitan University
In early July 2022, three Guttman students and alumni, Shaday Barrett, Samantha Hernandez, and Bashir Juwara, joined Professor Samuel Finesurrey on a trip to England to present their work at the Oral History Society (OHS) Annual Conference hosted by London Metropolitan University. They presented a paper titled “We Live It, We Tell It: Still Fighting for a Victory Against Racism at Home” as a part of the panel: A New Generation’s Struggles for a Racially Just Society. Their presentation was rooted in an archive titled Voices From the Heart of Gotham: The Undergraduate Scholars Oral History Collection at Guttman Community College, which houses testimonies gathered by approximately 200 GCC students between 2020 and 2022. Barrett, Hernandez, and Juwara, along with Guttman alumni Tigida Fadiga, Luz Hidalgo, Sadaf Majeed, Elsy Rosario and Phisarys Sidemion, have spent the past two years curating this archive, which works to democratize the production of knowledge by empowering community college students, largely from immigrant families, to shape the narratives told about their communities and their generation. Please find the abstract for the paper presented at OHS below:
During World War II, Civil Rights leader A. Philip Randolph organized the Double V Campaign, demanding victory against fascism abroad and against racism at home. While Randolph’s movement led to significant gains for African Americans, today, yet another generation has been forced to continue the struggle for Black liberation.
CUNY’s Guttman Community College undergraduates and alumni have gathered and curated approximately 200 student-produced testimonies for the Voices From the Heart of Gotham archive. By collecting and writing about these oral histories, undergraduates at Guttman have become producers of knowledge in the midst of a historic movement.
NYC’s history of systemic violence against Black communities, and powerful movements of resistance, position our city as a site for critical racial history. For us, students at CUNY, our home has become a focal point in the struggle for Black Lives. When interviewed for this project, Imani Hunt, a 19-year-old African American woman living in Harlem, explained: “We’re in a place where so many different cultures meet, and it makes us more sensitive to these issues…. People actually see how important Black Lives are here.” Given the experiences in our social networks and those of our peers, we realized these testimonies were vital to challenging the white supremacist and nativist systems that founded the United States and have proven central to the shaping of our city.
At OHS, our paper focused on testimonies narrated between 2020 and 2022, centered on themes of protest in the aftermath of highly publicized incidents of police brutality. We will unveil and honor the pain and perseverance of largely working-class communities of color as they grappled with their place in society, often taking to the streets and their devices demanding a more just home.
Stella and Charles Guttman Community College is CUNY’s first new community college in over four decades. The College officially opened its doors in midtown Manhattan, overlooking Bryant Park, on August 20, 2012. Created to deliver a community college education with a focus on student achievement and timely completion, Guttman’s unique and innovative model prepares students for lifelong learning: Guttman graduates are ready to face the challenges of an ever-changing world.
