HistoryMakers interviews with Hank Aaron
The HistoryMakers organization is a non-profit institution whose purpose is to record, preserve and disseminate the content of video oral history interviews highlighting the accomplishments of individual African Americans and African-American-led groups and movements. While the first interviews date from 1993, the recordings capture family memories and lore back to the 1890s. HistoryMakers is unique in its large and varied scope, with interviews of both famous and less well known pathbreakers.
Much of the material on the HistoryMakers organization website is freely available. Sign up for their monthly newsletter to receive thoughtful posts about timely topics, with material drawn from HistoryMakers interviews. Recent posts include Black Barbershops, White Mobs and African Americans, The DNC and the Black Vote, and The Real Katherine Johnson. The Education section of HistoryMakers offers resources both for higher education and K-12 curricula. K-12 materials include curriculum support for themes such as ScienceMakers,
Behind the paywall, the Libraries offer access to the HistoryMakers Digital Archive, offering more than 2600 oral history interviews with Blacks who have made significant contributions in fields as varying as the arts and popular culture, to politics and law, to science and medicine. Explore the collection by Maker name, area of contribution, gender, birth decade, or profession. Additional options allow you to search full text transcripts by keyword as well as finding specific interview clips by topic such as personal values, formative experiences, activism, civic institutions, or racism. You can create and share clip playlists, as well.
We invite you to explore these inspiring, revealing, sometimes sobering and sometimes humorous interviews. Just set aside a few hours because you won’t want to stop!
HistoryMakers interview with Katherine Johnson on her early days at NASA; one of a series of 5 tapes with more than 30 individual clips.