HBCU Radio Preservation Project: Oliver Holley
Oliver Holley reminisces about HBCU family ties, traditions, working at WRVS, his time as a Dept. of Public Instruction district superintendent, and more.
It’s Wednesday—are you ready for this week’s edition of the HBCU Radio Preservation Project? As a collaborator in the project, the Margaret Walker Center is serving as a repository for the histories of HBCU stations and the community members who have been a part of them.
Born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Oliver reminisces on spending much of his childhood at Elizabeth City State University. Many members of his family, including his parents, attended HBCUs, and his father managed the ECSU bookstore and worked on campus for over thirty years. Oliver reflects on meaningful HBCU traditions like homecoming, and how such traditions foster the multi-generational connections contributing to the important community the colleges and universities generate.
Oliver also attended ECSU, studying English and working at the WRVS radio station. Through that experience, he gained many mentors, learned about programming content, and was able to DJ his own show. After graduation, Oliver worked in the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, where he eventually became a district superintendent. As an administrator, he travels to various spots around the state, and he reflects on how he navigates issues such as race, class, and mentorship in his professional experience.
There’s much more to hear, so click on the video below!
About the Project
Each Wednesday, tune into our YouTube channel, @mwalkercenter, to catch a new oral history from the HBCU Radio Preservation Project!
We are proud to partner with several organizations for the HBCU Radio Preservation Project, which is dedicated to honoring and preserving the rich history and cultural resource of HBCU radio.
Here’s some more info from their website:
Much of the material created at these stations is at risk of being lost, though they document the rich history and diversity of the Black experience through the Civil Rights era and beyond. The goals are to preserve the stations’ audio collections and to foster a community of sustainability for the stations and institutional archives on campus.
The project provides preservation training and workshops for campus stations, archivists and community members, recruiting HBCU graduates as interns and fellows.
Field archivists will collaborate with stations and campus archivists on collections assessments and follow-up field services such as inventories, reformatting, rehousing, and other preservation activities.
Oral historians will interview a range of community members to document the history of the stations. Training in gathering oral histories and using historical audio in content creation will also be offered. Other goals include launching an interactive website, a podcast series, and annual symposia.
