Preserving our Voices with Jocelyn Robinson

Published Nov 10, 2020, 7:09 PM

It’s a shame to think about audio of some of the most influential civil rights leaders collecting dust in a basement somewhere. Preservationist and audio producer Jocelyn Robinson has made preserving the audio archives at HBCUs her mission.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet. Will be back with a new season soon, but until then and an honor of homecoming, enjoy this special mini celebration of women using technology to make change on the campuses of historically black colleges. We'll be back for our regular season soon. There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. The Internet is ephemeral. How can you archive something that happened on social media or something that existed completely online. That's actually one of the reasons why I created this very podcast. I saw all the ways that underrepresented communities contribute to the Internet and technology, but I saw those same contributions being overlooked or forgotten. I didn't want them to fade away. Audio was a bit like that too. Tape aids, hard drives crash and pieces get lost forever. In the age of searching text, audio is that much harder to hold onto. But there's something magical about the medium of audio. Hearing someone tell their stories in their own words just hits differently. That's why it's so important that we be intentional about whose voices we preserve. Joscelyn Robinson is an audio producer and preservationist, and she has long standing roots in the museum community. What if she thought we could survey the audio archives of the voices and stories housed at radio stations on the campuses of historically black colleges and universities or HBCUs. So in her late fifties, she quitted a job, went back to school, and made it her mission. Jocelyn served as the very first archives fellow at Dayton, Ohio's only national public radio station, w y s O, where she produced Rediscovered Radio, a series built around w y s o's civil rights era audio. Now, Johnston works with HBCUs to start a dialogue around preserving the audio at their radio stations. Her work, it's grounded and making sure we preserve our stories and in doing so that we preserve the magic of audio. So how did you get into your work preserving audio at historically black colleges? In two thousand thirteen, I took a an audio production course at the local public radio station, and I just got bit by the bug. And by two thousand and fifteen I had quit my day job and was producing part time and teaching part time, and UM I had always in the back of my mind had this idea that UM, I you know, would love the thought of doing a long form audio at HBCUs because it's not something that's typically taught in mass communications courses and programs and at when I was working initially, UM, I used some archival audio from w y s SO that is mainly from the sixties and seventies into the eighties, UM, and so it reflected the civil rights era and also the movement into black nationalism, the peace movement, anti war movement of the seventies, and I just became enamored of of um historical materials kind of related to my background in the museum community. There's around a hundred roughly HBCUs it in existence today and a third of them just about have radio stations. And I thought, you know, if w y s O has this kind of material, UM it was also a college radio station initially at Antioch College in Yellow Springs. If that college radio station has such incredible material, and I mean it's incredible material and the the voices of people who were significant from those periods are represented there as well as the history of the local area and the college and the state, and you know, what was going on in the world. But I thought, HBCUs, being the crucible of the civil rights movement in so many ways, must have some materials too, and so I had I had thought about it. And when I quit my day job, I went back to school and got grad certificate in public history with a with a focus on archives, so that I would be knowledgeable about the archival process and about the materials and and and their preservation and UM. In the course of doing that, I kind of fell into a preservation activity that was UM UH initiated at the Library of Congress UM the Radio Preservation Task Force and UH, and that just opened up this whole world of people who were seeking out and figuring out how to preserve and use these materials all over the world. So I was aware of this this world, but I became UM kind of immersed in it, and I became a member of the UM African American and Civil Rights Radio Caucus of the Radio Preservation Task Force and went to conferences and did presentations with this idea that, UM, wouldn't it be great if we could survey the materials at historically black colleges and universities, and someday, if I can find the funding for it, that's what I'm gonna do. Justin got a grant from the National Recording Preservation Foundation to s h b c U s about what kind of audio were housed at their campus radio stations. How tragic is it to think that an audio recording of Rosa parks could be collecting dust and some campus basement somewhere. Well, Jostin wanted to sure these radio stations had access to the ability to archive their audio. What I found was that UM radio stations at most colleges are not necessarily included in the institutional records management or preservation efforts that they that the college normally takes takes on, and that it was an opportunity to connect the radio stations with the institutional archives on their campuses and at least get a dialogue going, if not get the institutional archives to take on the task of preserving the audio audio material. So what was it exactly about HBCUs. Why did you feel like it was so important to be doing that work on HBCU campuses Having sort of an intimate understanding of the challenges that are faced by HBCUs and also their importance to UM, the American Higher Education UM landscape, but UH and to our communities. And there were times when you know, teachers, doctors, UM, lawyers, UM engineers were trained primarily at HBCUs and UM. And that's one of the things that distinguishes historically black college from a predominantly white institution. So UM so to me, they are precious. They are sacred ground and UM and they are in their communities UM and you know here in Ohio world bit isolated. But as I got to know the other um uh, my my counterparts at other campuses and got to know their their their institutions, you know, and realizing how important they are to UM black people in this country and particularly in the Southeast, they are hallowed ground and and anything that took place there is is worthy of of of not just preservation but also um uh honoring to to to look to it as a as an example of resilience. I don't know that we can even imagine, UM, those of us who do not live in UM the former UM, you know, Confederate States, what life was like and and how our institutions UM, our churches are our communities, but but especially centered around UM are Historically black campuses were refuges, uh, places of uh you know, where the intellect and ingenuity and um creativity of black people could um shine and thrive. And um you know that that's an important um legacy to honor. And with audio, it's such an intimate and um uh you know, emotionally charged UM medium. And I think that um you know finding materials, which is very difficult. Radio is ephemeral and um and not a lot of recordings were made. At times, making recordings was expensive. You know, a quarter inch tape was expensive. The playback equipment was was you know expensive, and and and maybe a few and far between at times that changed, you know, when the when cassettes became um more prominent, but but certainly when it was real to real you know, that's a big bulky machine with a big bulky tape. So um, you know, to try to find anything and and also you know the thing about radio stations is that they often change format when when the license changes hands. And what happens is whatever was happening before of gets swept up and thrown out into the dumpster. So to make sure that that anything that might be of significance at an HBC Radio station, is you know, found and preserved is kind of It's a mission for sure. Audio is a special medium. That intimacy is one reason why he became a podcaster in the first place. Hearing someone tell their story it's just different than reading it in print. Through her work, Johnston preserves this intimate magic for future generations. I often wonder if listening if if people listening to two audio producers talk about audio production, is is like boring? But I have to say, when you talked about the intimacy of the medium of audio, like that's what made me fall in love with it. And I'll never forget um my grandmother. She she's now passed away. She is from Charlotte, North Carolina, and she is a you know, uh black Southern matriarch of a big Southern family. And at the University of North Carolina reached out to her to do this archival project where she sat down and and talked about her life with a researcher. And I had read clips of this before and I really enjoyed reading it. But one day I found the audio of her her telling me, of her telling these stories, and it something about hearing her voice was so different. You know, I had I had read, I had read what she had said before, but hearing her say it in her own words. If I've always felt that there's something intimate and magical about the medium of audio, just you know, it's so intimate, it's in your ears, and it just can hit your can hit you in a different way I feel, And I don't know. I guess I've always when people ask, you know, why audio, I never really have a good answer, but I think it just always comes back to that intimacy. Well, one of the things that creates that intimacy, if you think about it, is that if you were thinking of other media, and we're thinking of especially a visual media, you what you see is what is in the frame. What you see is what the person who made that image or whether it's moving or not. But what the person you're seeing, what the person that made that image um chose for you to see, what they curated for your eyes. And with audio, I tell people you can't use photoshop on audio. You cannot, you cannot change what you what you hear. Microphones are dumb, they're not smart. They look up everything, so what you hear is what was heard. You hear all of it. You hear the train whistle in the background, you hear the sirens, you hear the birds singing or the crickets chirping. And so not only do you hear all of that, you hear the emotion in someone's voice. You hear them take a breath and think about what it is they're about to say. You hear them cho woke up. You hear them laugh. You know. So it's and and you hear it all um without a filter, the same way that that you know that with the visual um that image is curated so um. So I think that that's what creates that sense of of of total experience, even though um, it's just coming through your ears. And there's something about that vibration that you know, it's on a vibrational level. You know that even in a recording, even in effect simile, you can, um, you can feel that vibration. When I first got into podcasting, I was very self conscious because I was very new at it, and so I would try to edit my audio to make it seem as though, you know, I was just the most well spoken person. I never you know, used a filler word. I never like stopped and restarted I never had to catch my breath. I never you know, cleared my throat while I was thinking. And it's funny because those are all the little markers of somebody figuring something out in real time. And that's actually why you listen to audio, because you get these unfiltered, unedited moments that don't you think, aren't photoshops like you said. And I think the more that I when I realized that the reason why I like audio is because you get to hear the crickets chirping, and then this and then that, and allowing that those little nuances to to stay in my own audio, it really just I feel like it all clicks from me. It really it really helped me in the in the craft of audio storytelling. M hmm. It's I think what it does is it it helps us stay in touch with our humanity. You know it even if it's even if something we're listening to is is highly um uh produced um, you still get that that sense that that uh, you know, you're you're hearing it. It said, hearing is and and and listening are active of you know, um sorts of things. It's that you're not passive. You have to you have to pay attention. You know, you have to you you have to let your brain absorb, you know, what's being heard and and make sense out of it. So, I mean, I think there's a humanness to to um uh audio work that that really, um you know, kind of transcends uh the fact that we are using these highly technical and technological tools to to um preserve it and um disseminate it more. After this quick break, let's get right back to it. So do you have a maybe do you have an example of like a favorite piece of audio that you have found in your work or one that stuff with you. Um. Wow, that be a big question. That's a big question. You know, I spend so much time um listening that um I listened to a lot of things and um you know, I think that's what I love about the archival audio actually is that it transports me. You know, it takes me back to a place there is um a I think it was probably a Pacifica produced um interview with Maya Angelo that just you know still knocks my soft socks off and it's it's it was part of wisos collection because back in the day, um uh folks used to swap tape. So it was a tape that ended up somehow in w y s O s Um tape library, but was produced. Um, I believe at w b A if I'm not mistaken. So it was it was um you know, from from years past. And she sings on it. Um. She she not only speaks her poetry, but she also sings a spiritual this is uprising up next the late great Maya Angelou. It's in the reach of my arms, the span of my hips, the stid of my step, the time of my lips. Because I'm a woman, phenomenally phenomenal woman. That's me. If you listen to it again. Anyways, we were just saying you hear everything in her voice. You hear her life in her voice, you hear the black experience in her voice. It's just um. Yes, it's transportive. It's it's transcendent, so transformative. Um. Yeah, that's that's one of my favorite pieces of audio for sure. According to the Women's Audio Mission, a nonprofit that trains women engineers and producers, less than five percent of the people creating the sounds music in media that make up the daily soundtrack of our lives, our women or gender not conforming folks, and as a podcaster, I know that our audio landscape definitely excused white and mail, but it also tends to skew young, a dynamic that Jocelyn, who quit her day job to train as an audio producer in her late fifties challenges. So what was it like getting involved in audio production as a woman in her late fifties. What I felt like I was bringing to the table was a you know, a lifetime of experience. So the technical part of it was not a big stretch for me. Um. And in fact, you know, the first time I sat down with Hindenburg and started to um edit my own UM, you know, I was, I was in the zone. I was in the flow all I mean almost immediately. So, UM, I'm a musician, you know, I I've I've done other creative pursuits in my life and um and it was, you know, I recognized pretty quickly that I was doing something that was feeling my heart and soul in ways that other things I had been doing UM was not so um you know. So, so the that part of it came pretty easily. And then because I was working in some community based um you know production um uh areas it wasn't really UM an issue so much that here was this person who in her fifties just you know, just starting out. And I had a lot of success pretty early on because I was doing work that I knew. I had a series called Rediscovered Radio in which I took the archival audio at w y s O and UM used it to uh make short pieces, UM, short documentary pieces that aired UM on the radio station, you know during the UM drivetime shows, so during morning edition and all things considered. So I learned to work with the with the NPR clock almost right away. UM. I was doing interviews as well as UM contextualizing the historical audio and putting it all together. And UM that the first I did two seasons of it, so UM you know, I've done dozens and dozens of them. So I got to work at the craft, UM like hands on, UM already producing for air material that UM you know, UH was UM you know, the kind of production work that I think you don't necessarily get to do. Even as a young person I was. I was the producer of of of the series. I was able to take the maturity that I had from the other parts of my life. Plus the fact that you know, I've been this high level administrator and I know how to get things done. Um, so I didn't have a lot of of um down time or you know, when I jumped into it, I really got to jump into it. So so there was that. But I have seen what I would consider agesm in the in the field, and in fact, that's a conversation that we're having at AIR right now about what that looks like. And um, not only for people newly entering the field as in ah uh a pivot you know, in their in their careers, but but people who have been in the business for many, many many years and have weathered all its changes as as has progressed, and are finding themselves now getting boxed out or or overlooked for something younger, newer, fresher kinds of things. So now I think, because I work with historical materials and I have a certain amount of um firsthand knowledge some of the events and and so forth. UM, you know, it has served me really well. But you know, I also have found that I need to push my um uh, my skill set and my producing chops. I have to just keep pushing it beyond that so that I'm doing work that is um, um you know topical and um you know again new and fresh and and and you know, keeping not just myself but listeners um engaged with what's going on in the world. So um, yeah, I've just been really fortunate. It was all kind of a perfect storm of goodness, the best kind of storm. Yeah, you talked about agism and how I don't know, I guess I feel like we have this very pervasive culture where we're obsessed with thirty under thirty lists and people who are sort of young and successful, and that's a that's a great story, but it does just it does discount the wisdom and the skill set and the experience that comes with age. And I feel like we are so obsessed with youth that we can overlook that. Yeah, if you if you came to audio production in your fifties, that would mean that you would come with an entire skill set, you know of and experience, like like many years of experience. And I think that because we're obsessed with youth, we don't allow for that to be as meaningful and as good of a thing as it really truly is, oh, no doubt, you know. And and a lot of that is very cultural and you know, I mean it. One of the things that I have been working with lately has been community based storytelling projects and UM, and much of that is focused on gathering and preserving and sharing the stories of elders and going back to UM, you know, a cultural mindset in which the wisdom of elders is held in high esteem and UM. And that is you know, very much a a traditional UM. Traditional communities hold elders and high esteem and UM. You know, trying to move back towards that I think is very important. But you know, work with oral histories and UM with UH, you know, interpreting some of the say, for instance, interpreting some of the events that some of the historical audio might UM uh be representing. Is you know who better than someone who was actually there and who experienced it, you know, in their own lifetime. So you know, really honoring the voices and the stories of elders as part of this work and finding that you know, many of those elders are quite capable of of UM, you know, producing and being UM you know, active participants in that story gathering and that storytelling. So UM you know, that's I think really important work. But but but truly it's it's it's very it's a it's a it's a cultural thing in the US. For sure. It's not quite as um I think, uh, you know intense in other places, is it as it really is here? It definitely is a cult of youth in the US. And UM, you know, one of my favorite things to tell people is like, there's this old Richard Prior bit where the junkie and the wino are talking and Junkie says something him to something to him of the effect it's like, you old fool, and the win says, boy, you don't get to be old being no fool. I love that. I love that I have to I have to tell you. I mean, I hope this isn't like too much information, but um, I'm speaking to you today from my brother's condo in Richmond, Virginia, and I live in Washington, d C. And um, the reason why I'm here is because our father UM had had an unexpected health emergency. So I'm here so that I can take care of him while he's been in the hospital this week, and he's he's on the upswing. He's doing much better. But when I brought him in on when he came to the hospital on um Monday night, and he was not doing so well. All I could think was that I wish I had brought my recorder so that we could have a conversation, so that I could remember, I hear his stories and get them on audio. Like that was all I can think was, God, I wish I had my recorder. God, I wish I had my recorder so that we could have we could, you know, have a conversation because often worry that, you know, we all love to have our elders in our lives and then when they pass on, we would like it would be How meaningful would it be to be able to have an archival of those stories in their own words? That was all I can think, was like, I hope I haven't missed my chance to to get his stories on audio. That was like the number one thing in my mind. Never leave home without it. That's what I'm learning. That's a that's a producer trick, I mean. And and sometimes I'm like, why am I hauling this stuff around? I don't use it. It's here, you know, But but I have a bag that I love that has my my um my kid in it, and I just make sure that if I'm going to be someplace where I don't know what's going on. This necessarily Um that it's in the car, you know, I just it's I just take it with me everywhere. But the other thing is, you know, um, you have a recorder probably you know, in your back pocket and done, um, done right, you can capture some pretty decent audio with a smartphone and um, so in a pinch, you've got something right there that that you could use. And um, you know, story Corps has done a marvelous job of of making it possible, you know, democratizing the whole notion of of of preserving stories. And um there there interface for recording is really really good. But you can get a pretty decent recording if you have an iPhone with um um voice Memo. So voice Memos is a is a you know, perfectly good recorder. On this podcast, I try to what I try to do is sort of create a kind of audio archive of underrepresented people and their contributions to technology, to digital culture, to internet culture specifically, because I feel those things can be kind of ephemeral. They can, you know, the Internet changes so quickly and people forget about what came before, and so um, I wanted to chronicle some of this. What would you be your advice be to make sure that more underrepresented communities and voices are having their stories included in records and archives UM so that we know they existed well. Particularly with UM podcasts, there are a number of people who are developing UM UM podcast archives and UM seeking those folks out is important. But also public libraries are are are undertaking some UH audio preservation. We work with the Green County Public Library here to UM preserve some of the digitized material from UM the w y s O Collection which UM UH which includes uh uh oral histories and and so forth from the civil rights era. So so making sure that you you know, approach your existing institutions to be able to UM make sure that they're including your materials in their collections as as a member of that community UM, I think is an important important thing to do UM. And I think that that's something that archivists as a profession are looking at more of knowing that they are gatekeepers for cultural materials and knowing historically what that has meant, which has met which in which you know, white supremacy has created barriers too that UM material being collected and preserved. So you know, there are many many archival projects and archives that are I think opening their collecting um uh you know, policies to uh to right wrongs that have been perpetrated in the past. So I think it's a changing UM situation. But but certainly again, you know, the HBCU community is a place where our stories are are are important in our are considered uh you know, worthy of preservation. And once again I can't seeing the praises of something like a community based project UM that I'm doing UM at West State and Stories which is working with the African American communities in in in Dayton, Ohio to collect and preserve stories or um uh what Story Corps can do with community based projects. UM, they have a whole tutorial that can teach an organization about how to collect and gather stories and preserve them through the Story Corps at the Library of Congress or um, you know, through their own means in the libraries or what have you, in the in the community. So UM, you know there's that, But I think part of it too is there's an understanding, UM you know that that materials are UM a somewhat ephemeral UM themselves uh you know, uh, magnetic tape deteriorates. Uh, color photographs fade, um you know, uh film uh sticks together and can no longer be played or even digitized. And the whole digital environment also, um is not permanent there you know, if you have materials that are preserved so so you think on a hard drive and that hard drive fails, that material has gone forever. So you know, digital preservation is as the whole world unto itself, and um you know, look for libraries often will have um, you know, little preservation workshops for families and individuals and and sometimes there's a lot to be found there. But then there are some wonderful websites that have um, you know, material that people can um uh read to to figure out how to preserve their photographs or preserve their old tapes or or or what have you. And the Library of Congress has a really good website for that. So you know, there's there's information out there. UM. But it really does help to talk to somebody who's in the know, and oftentimes that's you know, somebody you can find at your local library. I love how oftentimes it always comes back to libraries, like we forget what a resource. They are. Oh, they're they're so important, you know. Um. Yeah, they are community touchstones for sure, and in many communities, and you know, it's it's really one of those places where where civic life can can take place, UM. And that's their charge, and that's that's what they're there for. So it's not just a repository for for books but UM and reading material, but there's so many other things. In today's libraries are places where there are maker spaces, and they have podcasting studios and they do training in podcasting and or audio or oral history gathering and all of those things. So you know, they're really great resources for for all of it. Yeah, I mean you're a great resource too. You've really created this model of how institutions can be thinking about preservation and how all of us can be thinking about preserving the stories for our own families in our own communities so the next generation can learn from them and we're gone. So you know, to that end, what do you hope that people say about your work a hundred years from now? Well, I hope that, for one thing, that that the HBCUM materials are are still available and accessible to students and researchers and UM community members to to to tap into two to know what life was like UM in some respects before, you know, the civil rights movement was able to UM turn a tide um of experience for black people in America and what happened throughout that and and then beyond and UM. You know, if you don't pay attention to history, you're doomed repeated of course, and and and that's something that I think we're realizing today that we are experiencing UM because we haven't paid good paid tent, good enough attention. We haven't paid attention well enough to do what's happened in the past and and and what's been done in the past, and and you know, that's an important thing to do. So, you know, a hundred years from now, I wanted to start with the HBCUs. But I'm also hoping that that the model that we set through the projects that UM are about preserving UM radio material from historically black colleges and universities, it was a model for for others to follow, and that other marginalized and um uh, you know, others whose whose voices have been left out of the American dialogue have have a a template to follow. So that they two can can preserve their voices. Our voices and our stories matter. Preservation isn't just for institutions. We should all be thinking about preserving the stories and our communities and our familes for future generations to come. Don't let them fade away. We hope you enjoyed this special celebration of women making Change at HBCUs. We'll be back with more. There Are No Girls on the Internet. Soon. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi, You can reach us at Hello at tang godi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tang godi dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

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