Wabash College Black Oral History Project

Photo of the listening station from the 2024 Ramsay Archival Center exhibit "Memories of Crawfordsville's Lincoln School for Colored Children: Some History on Segregated Education in Crawfordsville, Indiana." This listening station is the same one that was used for the Carnegie Museum's exhibit on the Lincoln School, providing access to the digital collection of oral history interview excerpts with mentions of the Lincoln School from the Wabash College Black Oral History Project Collection.

Shannon Hudson and Vicke Hudson-Swisher for their book To Remember the Forgotten School: Lincoln School for Colored Children along with Janna Bennett for the Carnegie Museum of Montgomery County's exhibit Unequal and Undaunted: Education and Community at Lincoln School for Colored Children used archival collections from the Robert T. Ramsay, Jr. Archival Center at Wabash College in their research. Primarily, these researchers used the Wabash College Black Oral History Project Collection, a collection of oral histories from members of Crawfordsville’s Black community collected by Wabash students, faculty, and staff in the 1980s. In addition to such topics as segregation and racial issues on the College's campus and in Crawfordsville, many local interviewees mention memories of the Lincoln School and Lincoln Recreation Center. 

The Ramsay Archival Center created the digital collection Memories of Crawfordsville’s Lincoln School to provide access to excerpts from the original audio recordings about the Lincoln School and Lincoln Recreation Center. This digital collection was a collaboration between the Carnegie Museum of Montgomery County and the Ramsay Archival Center, and the digital collection was accessible via listening stations at the Carnegie Museum as part of their exhibit.

To view the digital collection Memories of Crawfordsville's Lincoln School or the full digital collection of the Wabash College Black Oral History Project Collection, please visit the links below.

Wabash College Black Oral History Project Collection

Memories of Crawfordsville's Lincoln School for Colored Children Digital Collection