In honor of Independence Day, we’ve created a special Fourth of July showcase, featuring 40 original stories from Americans of diverse backgrounds, faiths and colors. We invite you to celebrate the 4th of July with these rarely told stories recalling the contributions and the struggles, the successes and hopes in search of the amazing identity that is America.

Each year, the Fourth of July gives us all a wonderful chance to celebrate America’s deeply prized values—liberty, freedom and equality. We mark the occasion with picnics, parades and BBQs, and we express our patriotism with flags and songs. Amid the fanfare and fireworks, however, we don’t always have the opportunity to reflect more deeply on the ideals on which our nation was founded. We don’t often have the chance to consider our progress toward equality for all men and women, and to explore the diversity that is the hallmark of the American identity.

Lucky for us: artists have been doing just that for centuries. From Thoreau to Springsteen, writers, artists and storytellers have shared their perspectives on America’s promise and inspired their countrymen to keep working toward the attainment of a truly free country for all. With that in mind, we’ve created this special Fourth of July video showcase to celebrate America’s independence, its promise of equality for all, and the beauty and challenge of diversity.

We invite you to visit our Showcase Page where our artists of the spoken word — professional storytellers –tell their stories for the 4th July — or for any time.

This month we highlight storyteller Jim May’s stories about a former slave named John Henry and Holocaust survivor Lisa Derman. While neither are still living, their stories beg to be shared again and again. In them, we can find small but powerful truths about what it means to do the right thing.

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Jim May, a storyteller who speaks in a disarmingly simple, matter-of-fact style, tells original stories of growing up in the rural farming, all-white town of Spring Grove, Illinois. His stories, both humorous and touching, range from coming-of-age German-Catholic experiences to horse trading tales and memories of family life. For children, he offers stories from traditional sources and a variety of cultures, in an effort to emphasize the wisdom of great tales that have been handed down from one generation to the next.

That practice of handing down stories from one generation to the next is especially poignant in his stories of John Henry, a former slave who found a welcoming home in a small Illinois town, and Lisa Derman, a resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor.

“John Henry” focuses on the stories May’s family and neighbors told about the former slave from Tennessee who found work, respect, and some kind of home in Spring Grove. Their memories, however, also reveal a sense of loneliness that must have been a part of John Henry’s life in this rural community. As May seeks out his grave stone at the cemetery, he discovers a small but powerful symbol of remembrance, and hope for America’s racial future.

In “Lisa Derman,” May highlights the life story of the Holocaust survivor and Illinois patriot whose own words had the power to move people toward action, justice and peace.

Derman once said, “I might not be here much longer, but my story must go on.” And while neither she nor John Henry are still living, their stories can and should be kept alive. They offer reminders of history that some would like to forget, along with hope for the future and encouragement to do the right thing.

“John Henry.” Jim May recounts his community’s experience with former Tennessee slave John Henry, and how, in a small red plastic flower on a grave stone, May feels the power of remembrance and promise for America’s racial soul.

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“Lisa Derman.” In this quietly powerful story, Jim May shares the call to action issued by Holocaust survivor Lisa Derman: “At some point, all of you will have to stand up and do what is right.”

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As the immigration debate rolls on—and as our nation marks Asian Pacific American Heritage Month this May—we listen to the stories of Nancy Wang, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, as she describes her family’s challenges in the new world.
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With the U.S. Senate expected to take up broad immigration reform this year, the immigration debate is likely to heat up once again.

Folks on both sides of the debate are intensely passionate about this emotional issue: those opposed to reform are naturally concerned about jobs, especially in this faltering economy where unemployment remains at an all-time high. Those in favor cite, among other reasons, America’s tradition of giving new people —“the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—opportunities in the new world.

While the modern debate focuses almost exclusively on Mexico, nearly all immigrant groups to the U.S. have been the subject of contention. For centuries, immigrants from Europe, Africa, Central America and Asia have faced hardship and hostility in the United States. The Chinese were one such immigrant group that faced great difficulty for more than a century. And though they were subject to highly discriminatory housing and employment laws—and to outright mob violence and harassment—Chinese immigrants fought to make their own living, and along the way, made tremendous contributions to America’s infrastructure, economy and culture.

As our nation marks Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May, we take a look back at the Chinese experience, through the stories of Nancy Wang, a Chinese-American woman who grew up in Chicago and comes from a family that arrived in California by boat from China in the 1850s.

In her stories, Wang explores the struggle her ancestors had to be accepted and to make a living, first as immigrants and later as second and third generation Americans in California. Wang’s stories reveal often overlooked instances of de facto and legal discrimination while also examining her own personal, family history. Wang’s stories give us a personal look at American immigration, and show how one group of immigrants were ultimately made stronger by the challenges they faced in a country that often struggled to deliver the opportunities it promised.

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“Immigrant Story.” Nancy Wang traces generations
of her family’s experience in America.

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“Mom’s Story.” In this remembrance, Wang explores
her relationship with her mother, and her parents’
experience as Chinese immigrants.

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A corresponding lesson plan suitable for use in high school – adult learning environments is available free of charge by visiting RaceBridgesforSchools.com. This lesson plan will help students of all ages become aware of the discrimination and resilience of Chinese American immigrants who sought to find a unique Asian American identity.

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STORY CREDIT:

Copyright ©2010 Storyteller Nancy Wang. Used with permission.

April is National Fair Housing Month, marking successes and failures in the law of the land mandating fair housing for all.

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It’s been more than 40 years since the Fair Housing Act was passed, just one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. This was on April 11, 1968.

President Johnson signed the act into law to combat widespread discrimination in the renting and selling of homes—discrimination that had been rampant for decades. Since then, our society has made good progress, but we still have a long way to go. According to the National Fair Housing Alliance, there are at least four million acts of housing discrimination every year. And the collapse of the housing market was fueled by subprime lending practices, a market built primarily on borrowers and neighborhoods of color.

So even though we’ve moved away from the strict residential segregation that marred the 50s and ‘60s, the fact remains that most Americans still live in communities largely divided by race and ethnicity.

In recognition of the work that has yet to be done, and in commemoration of National Fair Housing Month in April, this month’s videos feature two of Chicago’s most engaging storytellers talking about growing up in changing neighborhoods. Both women—one Irish-American, one African-American—remember growing up on the south side in the 1960s. While their experiences were very different, they both observed racial transformations that challenged the powerful notion of “home” for blacks and whites alike. Some of the changes were amusing, but others were charged with hostility and hatred. Both stories deal with issues of segregation, racism and the human desire to simply belong.

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Changing Neighborhoods: High School

Yearbooks and White Flight.

Storyteller Shanta remembers her fascination with school yearbooks.
She was a nine-year-old on the south side of Chicago in the 1960s,
and people were moving out of her neighborhood…
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Changing Neighborhoods: The Friday Nights TV

Fights, Driving Across the Color Line, and White Flight.

Storyteller Susan O’Halloran remembers as a young girl
the southwest side of Chicago in the sixties.
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Rosa Parks is best known for her refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her action galvanized the growing Civil Rights Movement and led to the successful Montgomery bus boycott. But even before her defiant act and the resulting boycott, Ms. Parks was dedicated to racial justice and equality. She remained a source of inspiration and, most importantly, an activist for the remainder of her life.

In this compelling story, a dramatization by Storyteller Linda Gorham, Ms. Park’s story is illuminated to better understand the bravery of those who stood up to discrimination given the ignorance and violence of the times.

A corresponding lesson plan suitable for use in high school – adult learning environments is available free of charge by visiting RaceBridgesforSchools.com. This lesson plan will help students of all ages to become more familiar with the Rosa Parks’ story in a way that will challenge them to understand the challenges and feelings during the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. during the 1950s-1960s.

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STORY CREDIT:
Copyright ©2010 Storyteller Linda Gorham. Used with permission.

CHICAGO (March 1, 2010) – The JustStories initiative, an 8 year-old Chicago area festival that explores diversity through the performances of professional storytellers, is expanding its outreach with a new video web site, racebridgesvideos.com

Debuting on March 1, racebridgesvideos.com features high-quality digital videos of professional storytellers, such as Michael McCarty, Susan O’Halloran and Arif Choudhury, as they share original and personal stories about race, identity and family. By sharing these engaging stories through video, this project seeks to promote understanding and to bridge racial divides.

“These stories are not just about race. They speak of belonging, resilience, the desire for inclusion, and hope—things we all feel as humans, regardless of race,“ says Derek Simons, creative director of Angels Studio, a Chicago-based communications agency devoted to bringing the races together and building bridges of cooperation between different faith groups using the digital and expressive arts. “With the videos, we hope to share these messages with all kinds of people, young and old, whether individually, in classrooms, faith communities or even businesses.”

The storytellers featured on racebridgesvideos.com are both male and female, and represent the wide fabric of American diversity; they are African-American, Jewish, Hindu, Native American, Cuban, Irish, and so on. Their stories are often very personal, such as Syd Lieberman’s “Aunt Helen,” while others are dramatizations of historical people and events, such as Linda Gorham’s “Rosa,” which describes Rosa Parks’ famous stand against segregation.

Simons and the Angels Studio team have been organizing the JustStories Storytelling Festival and other live events around Chicago for the last eight years. They are also responsible for the educators’ resource,RaceBridgesForSchools.com, which provides teachers with lesson plans and other classroom materials to help students explore differences and build inclusive, welcoming communities.

About Angels Studio, JustStories and RaceBridges

Angels Studio is a communications ministry of the Roman Catholic Order – the Society of The Divine Word. This community serves people of faith, or without faith, around the world, in the belief that there is a rightful and just place for all God’s Children at the table of life. Angels Studio produces the RaceBridges and JustStories initiatives. The universal mission of these projects is to unite people of all faiths, people of no particular religious faith, and all people of goodwill to work at the unfinished business of building bridges across racial and class division.