Brooklyn Life

Oral History Project to Capture "Voices of Crown Heights" Through Extensive Audio Interviews

The Brooklyn Historical Society is looking to capture the ongoing changes in Crown Heights, including the tensions the community has — and hasn’t — overcome in past decades.

The West Indian Day Parade in 2015. Photo by Maude Delice

by Hannah Frishberg

03/29/2016 3 minute 0

The Brooklyn Historical Society has launched a longterm oral history project, Voices of Crown Heights, with plans to collect and share stories from area residents.

Through multimedia, including a curated digital exhibit and a web-based listening portal, Voices will attempt to capture the ongoing changes in Crown Heights, including the tensions the community has — and hasn’t — overcome in past decades.

In addition to new audio interviews, to be collected over the course of the next two years, the project will also feature existing oral histories recorded in the wake of the 1991 Crown Heights riots, a three-day uproar set off when a car in a religious leader’s motorcade accidentally struck and killed a Guyanese child. The riots reflected and exacerbated tensions between Orthodox Jews and black residents in the area.

“I moved to Crown Heights because I knew that I would never survive in a non-religious environment,” area resident Baila Kamman explains in one of the brief oral histories, recorded more than 20 years ago, and available for streaming on BHS’s website.

For better access to the stories, BHS plans to install “listening stations” around Crown Heights where the public can enjoy them, DNAinfo reported.

A public program for Voices is planned for late this summer, on August 10, days before the 25th anniversary of the riots. In partnership with Weeksville Heritage Center and Brooklyn Movement Center, BHS will put on a three-part program including an oral history presentation, performance, and panel discussion. Stay tuned for more information.