Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center

The Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center will preserve an oral history collection documenting African American life in Bulloch County and surrounding communities in southeast Georgia. Project activities involve hiring an archivist and digital collections assistant to conduct an inventory of the recordings, digitize the reel-to-reel and cassette recordings, generate transcripts and metadata of the recordings, and produce a comprehensive archival finding aid. Creating transcripts and descriptive metadata will enhance the collection's usability for researchers, educators, and students, allowing the recordings to be used in historical research, genealogy projects, and educational programs centered on African American history. The project will result in the preservation of 60 reel-to-reel tapes and 500 cassette tapes, representing an estimated 810 hours of recorded content, while ensuring the long-term preservation and access to these historically significant oral history recordings.