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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- April 13, 2004
Contact: Scott Hirko, Public Relations Officer
(517) 372-7770 -- shirko [at] michiganhumanities.org

FLINT CULTURAL CENTER CORPORATION AWARDED $15,000 GRANT FOR “FLINT COLOR LINE” ORAL HISTORY PUBLICATION

(LANSING)-----Michigan Humanities Council and Congressman Dale Kildee (D-Flint) announce that the Flint Cultural Center Corporation has been awarded a $15,000 grant for the project “Telling Our Stories: The Flint Color Line Project.” The project, funded in part by a Local Network Grant from Michigan Humanities Council, will document, preserve and make accessible to the public oral histories from Genesee county citizens about their true experiences during the Civil Rights Movement in Flint. The Flint Color Line Project (FCLP) is part of a national, multi-year initiative to collect and archive stories of the people who participated in or were impacted by the Civil Rights Movement in our country.

“The Flint Color Line Project is vital to understanding the importance of the Civil Rights Movement in Flint’s history,” said Janice Fedewa, Executive Director of Michigan Humanities Council. “Michigan Humanities Council’s grant will provide the Flint community an opportunity to preserve local oral histories and publish them for future generations.”

The Council’s grant will fund Phase III of the FCLP, with the first two phases having been completed over the past two years. In the third phase, the Flint Cultural Center Corporation will:

1. Document and preserve more than 1,000 FCLP stories and oral histories that have already been collected;
2. Publish “Telling Our Stories” and distribute free of charge to schools, libraries, churches, participants, and other interested parties; and
3. Create an Educator’s Implementation Manual to assist teachers throughout the Flint area to use CLP tools in the classroom.

“Telling Our Stories,” including all video and audio tapes of the oral histories, will be archived locally at Sloan Museum and the Flint Public Library, as well as at the Amistad Institute at Tulane University in New Orleans. The publication should be completed by March 2005.

"The Flint Color Line Project was specifically developed to help future generations understand the importance of Civil Rights Movement and its role in Flint's history," said Kildee. "This latest grant will allow the Flint Cultural Center Corporation to develop an extensive outreach program designed to raise awareness about the Flint Color Line Project and to help people develop a better understanding and appreciation of the entire Civil Rights Movement. We must continue to preserve our nation's history so that future generations may learn from our past experiences."

“The work done in our community to date by the Flint Color Line Project has reached and connected so many people from diverse backgrounds with the message of just what a powerful impact can be made when citizens work together around issues of social change,” said Cindy Ornstein, President and CEO of the Flint Cultural Center Corporation. “Preserving this work creates a vital mechanism to extend this message into the future and to share it with an even greater number of people.”

Michigan Humanities Council, founded in 1974, is the state’s independent, non-profit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.