The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida suspended all in-person interviews in March in deference to health concerns arising from the global pandemic. At the same time, however, the program launched the Pandemic Oral History Project as a virtual research initiative in order to offer working-class people, elders and students in the Gulf South the opportunity to tell their own stories of survival, civic engagement and labor on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19.
As national health experts have demonstrated, African American and Hispanic communities have been grievously impacted by the global pandemic. The Pandemic Oral History Project spotlights community leaders serving racial and ethnic groups whose vulnerability to the newest coronavirus is exacerbated by histories of barriers to equal citizenship and lack of political representation.