Behind the Veil

I am indebted to the professors and mentors I had as an undergraduate for laying the foundation for my career and for inspiring me with the idea for this endeavor.

One of the first jobs I held after graduating from Duke University, was working as a Research Associate/ Office Manager at “Behind the Veil,” a renowned oral history project based at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke in Durham, NC. What an honor and privilege for me work for and to be mentored by some of the best historians in the fields of US, African-American, and Civil Rights history—Raymond Gavins, William Chafe, Robert Korstad, Alex Byrd, Paul Ortiz, Leslie Brown, Annie Valk, Greta Niu and Blair Murphy Kelley. I learned firsthand the methodology of oral history, building on the foundation of historical research and writing strategies that I learned in classes required for the history BA.

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Photo courtesy of Jim Crow Museum website: http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/

A wealth of academic work has grown out of “Behind the Veil.” (Please visit the links below and search for the work of the authors named above.) “The Return to the Source” project is based on this model. It is my hope that in time, a wealth of other projects and products will grow from this database as well.

http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/behindtheveil/

http://books.google.com/books/about/Right_to_Ride.html?id=Rt8jwoFxsxEC

http://books.google.com/books?id=YliRkr3J-wgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=paul+ortiz&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZKQNUuqUJ4jU9QTb5YDoCg&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=paul%20ortiz&f=false