Why oral history is the indispensable resource for any historic Black cemetery research project.
The Limits of the Documentary Record
The documentary record of historic African American burial in the United States is systematically incomplete. Public death records were not maintained in many states until well into the twentieth century; where they were maintained, the records of African American deaths were often incomplete, inaccurate, or deliberately segregated into separate registers that were less carefully preserved. Newspaper obituaries for African Americans were rare in the mainstream press of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the Black press carried fuller obituaries but did not begin in most cities until late in the nineteenth century and is itself unevenly preserved. The records of Black churches and burial societies are extraordinary when they survive but are frequently lost to fire, congregational dispersal, or simple neglect.
The Persistence of Oral Memory
What survives, against all this, is the oral memory of the descendant community. The practice of regular cemetery visitation, the gathering of extended family at the gravesite each Memorial Day or Decoration Day, the careful repetition across generations of who is buried where, the pointing out of an unmarked grave by a grandparent to a grandchild who would in turn point it out to a grandchild a generation later — these practices have preserved a vast body of historical knowledge that exists in no document anywhere. The capture of this knowledge, before the generation that holds it has passed, is among the most urgent and most rewarding tasks in African American cemetery preservation today.
Conducting Oral History Interviews
Oral history interviews for cemetery research are typically conducted with elderly members of the descendant community, often in their own homes, at the cemetery itself, or at the church or community center most closely associated with the cemetery. Interviews should be recorded (audio recording is sufficient; video recording adds value but introduces complications); should be guided by an open-ended interview protocol that allows the interviewee to speak in her own way and at her own pace; should be supplemented with photographs and physical site visits where possible; and should be transcribed and archived in a form accessible to future researchers and to the descendant community itself.
Ethical Considerations
Oral history work in African American cemetery research is governed by the standard ethical considerations of oral history practice generally. Informed consent for the recording, archiving, and use of the interview should be obtained in writing. The interviewee retains a continuing interest in how her words are used and should be afforded the opportunity to review and correct transcripts. Particular care is required when the interview touches on sensitive matters — family disagreements, episodes of violence, the relationships between the descendant community and the white population of the surrounding area — that the interviewee may wish to discuss in confidence or not at all. The Oral History Association's Statement of Principles and Best Practices is the standard reference.
Integration with Documentary Research
Oral history and documentary research are most powerful in combination. The names recovered through oral history can be cross-referenced against church registers, newspaper obituaries, federal census records, military service records, fraternal society records, and probate documents, yielding biographical detail that neither source could supply alone. The locations of unmarked graves identified through oral history can be confirmed through ground-penetrating radar surveys. The disputed dates and relationships discussed in oral history can be tested against documentary evidence. The result, when the work is done well, is a portrait of the burial population of a historic Black cemetery substantially richer than what either method alone could produce.
Archiving and Sharing the Results
The products of oral history cemetery research should be archived in a form accessible both to the descendant community and to future researchers. Local historically Black college archives, regional Black historical societies, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Library of Congress all accept oral history collections of appropriate scholarly and community quality. Digital publication on community-controlled websites, with appropriate access controls for sensitive content, is also an increasingly common practice. The work of preservation, after all, is meaningless if its products are not preserved themselves.