African American Oral History

Aunt Sally, old midwife, the only doctor or nurse ever heard of in Gees Bend before project was started. Gees Bend, Alabama photo by Marion Post Wolcott

I'm going to try to make a list here of the major African American Oral history sites. I'm studying oral history projects so I can start my own and I didn't see any collection list like this. So here goes. If I'm missing one please comment or email me. These are projects that are only about African Americans.

1. The History Makers -  "We have more than 2,000 videotaped interviews. 310 have been digitized, comprising about 8,000 hours of videotaped interviews; 60 special event recordings; more than 2,000 online biographies, and over 30,000 photographic images."
2. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 - contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.
3. Getting Word - African American Families of Monticello - 100 Interviews so far
4. Behind the Veil - Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South - 310 interviews--all from North Carolina--from the Durham, Charlotte, Wilmington, Enfield, New Bern, and James City areas.
5. The Oral History Center at the University of Louisville
6. Black Oral History Interviews, 1972-1974 - Quintard Taylor, with associates Charles Ramsay and John Dawkins, interview black pioneers and their descendents throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

Some video documentary interviews

1. Counter Histories  documenting the struggle to desegregate Southern restaurants

Photoshelter's Lattice needs watermarks!

I can't use Photoshelter's new crowd-editing Pinterest alternative, Lattice, because I can't put my images on the Internet without a watermark and here is why:

I have an image of a nutrition label that is very popular. I know for a fact it has never sold with an extended license. It showed up in a magazine with a circulation of 1.5 million. My agency has a limit of 500,000 reproductions, after that you have to purchase an extended license. There isn't one on record. I contacted my agency - they said that because the image is available on my personal portfolio they will not contact the magazine and ask them for the extended license amount. So I am screwed on this one transaction.

I can't really afford to lose ANY sales. And I can't do anything that will make it harder for me to get compensated for future sales.

So I can't put my images on Lattice without a watermark.

Now I am really curious if anyone else feels the same way. So I started a poll.

Would you let me know how you feel about Lattice and watermarks?

Thanks,
Catherine dee Auvil