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The Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center

Reading list

Lyric Podcast Station

Books to accompany discussions of oral history, Black cultural memory, and the arts.

Read Barracoon alongside Freedom on the Border and listen for the relationship between interviewer and narrator. The program page leads to the Lyric’s studio. Add episode links as authorized recordings become available.

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Recommended reading

Oral history

Freedom on the Border

Catherine Fosl, Tracy E. K'Meyer

Kentuckians’ oral histories illuminate the work of challenging segregation across the state.

Oral history

Barracoon

Zora Neale Hurston

Hurston records Cudjo Lewis’s account of captivity, the Atlantic crossing, and life in Africatown.

History

How the Word Is Passed

Clint Smith

Visits to historic sites and memorials ask how public institutions tell the story of American slavery.

Memoir

Nina Simone's Gum

Warren Ellis

A small object saved after a Nina Simone performance becomes a meditation on musical memory.