oral history

Tell weldon’s stories with oral history

A town is its people.  Unless their stories are captured and their memories preserved, they are lost forever and history becomes a few facts and a cryptic chronology. Weldon In Action (WIA) recognized that many of Weldon’s current and former residents were passing on, and with them, the stories and traditions that shaped our community and its history. To tell Weldon’s story, Weldon In Action began a quest to record those who grew up in Weldon during the 20th century and to produce an oral history of the town.

We were fortunate to identify and be awarded a grant from the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to support the research and recording of the town’s history as part of the America 250 NC initiative. The grant funded the development of a video series on Weldon’s history, highlighting the geography, historic context, people, and events that shaped the community from colonial times to the present. Using the Roanoke River as a unifying theme, the eight chapters in the documentary come together to form The Current of Time - An Oral History of Weldon.

The enthusiasm for this project has been heartwarming. Thirty former and current residents of Weldon, spanning multiple generations, came from near and far to participate in the interviews. The grant enabled us to work with an award-winning documentarian, Martin Brown of Treehouse Productions, and other talented professionals and volunteers to produce the video series, which incorporates narration and an array of video footage, photographs, postcards, and newspaper clippings to bring Weldon’s history to life.

Additionally, through the grant, a curriculum development specialist, Cori Greer-Banks, with Carolina K-12, a program of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Carolina Public Humanities, joined our project team to develop teacher guides for appropriate grade levels tied to North Carolina educational standards. Using the guides, educators will be able to use the video series as a central element to help their students explore the role small towns have and continue to play in our state’s history, geography, sociology, and current affairs.

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Heartened by the reception of and praise for The Current of Time, we realized there are many more stories to tell and people to tell them.  There are aspects of Weldon’s identity that should be recorded for posterity.  There are individuals whose memories reveal the character and flavor of the community; their voices need to be heard.

We have embarked on phase II of the program. We have raised sufficient funds to undertake an additional twenty-three interviews. Our next steps include raising additional funds through targeted donations to produce a second documentary with five chapters, to create a dynamic website to house both videos and supplementary materials, and to edit the existing fifty-three interviews so that they can be shared on the website, posted on our YouTube channel, and entered on other social media channels.

This effort will not only add to the voices that tell Weldon’s story but create a structure that will provide the means to continue conducting interviews and recording them on the website well into the future.  Weldon’s history can become a living history. With additional funding, we have a unique opportunity to bring Weldon’s history to life through the personal recollections of current and future residents being shared.

Please note: When you click the button below to watch an episode, you will leave the Weldon In Action website and be redirected to our YouTube channel to view the video.