Collaborators from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Human Development and Family Studies, DREAAM (Driven to Reach Excellence and Academic Achievement for Males), and the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute (IHSI), along with Illinois students, local professionals, youth, and community leaders, are working together to collect and share oral histories of Black residents of Champaign County. The team is documenting stories and experiences of strength, legacy, and resilience across generations with joint funding from the Community Foundation of East Central Illinois and Department of Human Development and Family Studies, as part of the Lumpkin Family Foundation’s Untold Stories Initiative.
Tracy Dace, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of DREAAM, and Shardé McNeil Smith, a professor of human development and family studies, are long-time collaborators and IHSI affiliates. They have worked together on several projects that use storytelling as narrative medicine, beginning with the Community Healing and Resistance Through Storytelling (C-HeARTS) Collaborative, and extending into other projects, including the Ambitions and Stories of young People Inspiring Resilience and Engagement (ASPIRE) program and the development of a community strengths needs assessment for Black families and communities in Champaign-Urbana. These projects were selected to receive undergraduate research support through IHSI’s Community-Academic Scholars program, which also helped to deepen IHSI’s connections and involvement with the research.
Now, Celina Trujillo, a research development manager for community-academic partnerships at IHSI, is serving as project manager for the oral histories project, providing coordination of tasks, communication among the large team of researchers, youth, and community members, and providing insights and evaluation into project decisions and processes. Trujillo was also instrumental in getting the proposal submitted for funding initially, working closely with Dace, McNeil Smith, and the IHSI grants management office.
Once funded, the first steps of the project were to introduce Black youth (ages 11 to 18) enrolled in DREAAM (DREAAMers) and their parents to the purpose and importance of oral histories, highlighting how they recognize and amplify the strengths of Black individuals, families, and communities to reinforce positive self-image, support a sense of agency, and ultimately promote racial healing within the Black community and beyond. Daniel Gray, a community leader and oral history training facilitator for the project, trained and equipped DREAAMers with interviewing and transcription skills, and helped them understand and appreciate their work. Gray provided training twice a week for about a month, covering a different topic every week. Illinois graduate students Chelsea Alexander and Paapa Nkrumah-Arabio, and undergraduate student Dakota Dorsey were also instrumental in the training efforts.
“Training was such an important part of meeting our project goals,” said Dace. “The DREAAMers took their roles very seriously and responsibly, understanding how powerful this experience would be for them and their community. You could see their confidence and excitement build throughout the process.”
One DREAAMer made sure to ask for his interviewee’s biography in advance, explaining that he really wanted to practice and do well during the interview.
Though the project team started with a list of potential interviewees, they were ultimately nominated by the DREAAMers after an open discussion about people they would want to interview. They named people in their community – wisdom leaders, community mothers, and others who are doing great work but are not necessarily highlighted and profiled in traditional media.
Oral History Project Interviews
- Mayor Samuel Hall III
- Mayor DeShawn Williams
- Tonya Carter
- Regina Crider
- Rita Conerly
- Shandra Summerville
- Prof. Jessica Ballard-Lawrence
The project team helped to invite and schedule interviews, and Taylor Dent and Davorian Ware were hired as videographers for the project, bringing additional passion, professionalism, and dedication to the project.
“I was there during the interviews, and it was great to see the intergenerational conversation that was happening, to see the youth asking the elder about their lived experience,” said McNeil Smith. “Even if they don’t recognize it now, I believe that over time they’ll really understand and appreciate the gravity of that experience.”
Dace, McNeil Smith, and Trujillo commented that the interviewees abundantly shared that they felt very honored and grateful to be part of the process.
The recorded interviews are now being processed and compiled, with plans to present the histories at a public event open to the broader community in Spring 2026. The goal is to extend the empowerment and gratitude felt by the participants to a larger community of viewers who may be inspired to document their own stories, create lasting legacy, and continue building a narrative of strength, resilience, pride, and power that already exist in the community.