Bill Batson announces the Nyack record shop project where oral histories that reflect the African American community in Nyack will be collected the week of Martin Luther King's birthday in the window of the Kiam Record Shop in Nyack. Carucha L. Meuse/lohud.com
An ambitious effort will soon be underway inside of a tiny shop on Main Street in downtown Nyack.
At Kiam Records, oral histories will be gathered during one-on-one interviews as part of a project aimed at giving a voice to a group whose history is often overlooked — the African-American community.
The weeklong collection begins Monday, following a 2 p.m. interfaith Martin Luther King Jr. service at Pilgrim Baptist Church, 80 N. Franklin St.
"We want it all," said Bill Batson, director of the initiative known as the "Nyack Record Shop Project" because right now "there are vast periods where information is difficult to ascertain."
For instance, he said, if someone "wants to describe African-American skateboarders in the 70s, it would be welcome."
"Like any community, the African-American story in Nyack contains many divergent threads," said Batson, a village native whose art and activism is captured in his Nyack Sketch Log.
The aim of the Nyack Record Shop Project — an initiative by local churches, civic organizations, artists and businesses — is to log the personal stories and experiences that will become a tradition to mark not only Martin Luther King Jr. Day each January, but also Black History Month in February.
From the arrival of European settlers in the 1600s through the present day, blacks have consistently made up about 25 percent of the area’s population, but their stories have remained largely untold, according to the initiative’s organizers.
When King was assassinated 50 years ago this April “it wasn’t just an attempt to silence him,” Batson said, but also to silence an entire population and “the voices of many men and woman who endured and overthrew the Jim Crow tradition of racial discrimination in our country.”
Now, he said, “Their voices may go silent. Not from the infamous act, but from our own failure to record their life stories.”
Documenting the hardships, heartbreaks and highlights is a way to reverse that, he said.
"There are too many stories and not enough storytellers," Batson said. "The only way to address this imbalance is to train more people to collect oral histories and encourage more people to share their life experiences with the underrepresented communities."
Outside of the record shop one recent morning, Batson gathered with fellow project organizers to announce the effort and explain how it works.
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“We’re urging the public to consider telling their stories — to reach out to family members, neighbors or co-workers who lived a life of struggle and substance that deserves to be preserved,” he said. “When the narrative of Nyack is written, the black community should be a main character.”
After Monday's Martin Luther King service at Pilgrim Baptist, which is led by the local NAACP, gathering oral histories will begin across the street at Grace Episcopal Church and continue through Saturday at the record shop.
What do I do?
- Go: To Grace Episcopal Church (130 First Ave., Nyack) on Monday at 4 p.m. or Kiam Record Shop (95 Main St., Nyack) between 12 and 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. on Friday or Saturday.
- Speak: Tell your own personal story or your family’s story of life in Nyack. Feel free to bring an object, photo or publication of historical significance. The one-on-one interview with a volunteer trained by Batson will take place in a private area of the store and take about 30 minutes.
- Register: Before you head over, it’s best to register for an interview time slot at www.edwardhopperhouse.org/nyackrecordshop
Material gathered during the interviews, whether it be stories, copies of photographers or newspaper clippings, will be exhibited at the Historical Society of the Nyacks and Nyack Library later this year.
Jennifer Patton, director of the Edward Hopper House, said the exhibition will be on display for two years and the oral histories available for four months.
Planning for the Nyack Record Shop Project has been underway for almost two years and timed to coincide with an exhibit by photographer Carrie Mae Weems at the Edward Hopper House on North Broadway in Nyack, Patton said.
The award-winning photographer had her own success with an oral history project on the African-American community. Weems conducted audio and video recordings in a Beacon storefront she dubbed "the record shop."
“We’re carrying out her legacy here in Nyack,” said Patton.
What's on the record so far?
Over the last four decades, there have been a few efforts by various civic groups, historians, residents and libraries to uncover stories, according to Brian Jennings, a librarian at New City Library and technical adviser on the Nyack Record Shop Project.
But "There is still much more work to be done," Jennings said.
A few of the histories collected include:
Barbara Williams' account of the Freedom Riders' buses being attacked by the Ku Klux Klan in 1961, Frances Pratt's experiences growing up in rural South Carolina, Hezekiah Easter's reflections about coming to Nyack in the 1920s, Charlotte Eubanks Stokes' involvement with the local Civil Rights Movement and Travis Jackson's experiences going to school in the segregated Brook School in Hillburn.
Organizers of the Nyack Record Shop Project hope their outreach will yield anywhere from 40 to 100 stories from myriad historical periods. The first account will be given by the Rev. Willie L. Hairston of the Pilgrim Baptist Church, who will be urging others during his sermon Monday to participate.
By highlighting the contributions of blacks from the time of settlers to the American Revolution to the era of slavery and beyond, the project will hopefully be a way to show how the village came to be the diverse and creative community we know today, according to organizers.
Nyack's history includes: An apparent Underground Railroad stop run by freed slave and business owner Cynthia Hesdra and the 1965 election of Hezekiah Easter Jr. to the village board, making him the first African-American to hold public office in Rockland County.
Earl Miller of the Nyack branch of the NAACP said, “We’re very excited to be part of this collaboration.”
“We believe the project is very appropriate on the day in which we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Miller said during the recent announcement of the project's inception. “It certainly embraces the idea of building community.”
He added, “What better way to build community than by sharing stories with one another?”
Listening event
- When: 7 p.m. Feb. 13
- Where: New City Library, 220 N. Main St., New City
- Hear: Some of the more recently collected oral history accounts of African Americans in Rockland County
Other oral history projects
- One of the first large-scale oral history projects in the United States involved collecting accounts by workers part of the New Deal jobs during the 1930s. The project was designed to document the ways ordinary people coped with the Great Depression and yielded 2,900 manuscripts, compiled and transcribed by more than 300 writers from 24 states as part of the Federal Writers’ Project.
- Since then, there have been various interviewing projects over the years with blue collar workers, racial and ethnic groups, women and activists in hopes of giving them a voice.
- This isn’t the first local effort to embark upon an oral history project.
- In 2016, the results of a project designed at capturing the loss of rural life in Rockland as it transitioned to a more suburban place was made available at New City library. The project was led by local history librarian Brian Jennings and includes more than 60 interviews with people from all five of Rockland’s towns.