StoryCorps

This year, WJCT News partnered with StoryCorps for the One Small Step initiative. We paired local people from different backgrounds and political views to have conversations. This excerpt is the final piece in our weekly radio series.

Ursula Baker and Pamela Rhett both say big life events have shaped their politics. 

Ursula is having a tough time finding work during a pandemic, while Pamela’s father was shot and paralyzed from the waist down when he was in his 30s.

Northeast Florida residents Karen Maxwell and Marcie Niedbalski are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but it turns out, they share a lot of feelings about the divisiveness in the country.

This is an excerpt of their conversation, which was recorded as part of the One Small Step initiative, a partnership between WJCT News and StoryCorps.

This year, WJCT News is partnering with StoryCorps for the One Small Step initiative. We’re pairing strangers from all different backgrounds and political views to have recorded conversations.

In the first of our weekly radio series: Pat Harkin from Ponte Vedra and Natalie Nicholson from Jacksonville agree they would have probably never met if they didn’t sign up to chat.

High school teachers across the country have asked their students to record a Thanksgiving conversation with an elder or grandparent.

The project is called The Great Thanksgiving Listen, it’s part of the oral history initiative StoryCorps, known for pairing people up and eavesdropping on conversations that may never have happened otherwise.

In WJCT’s StoryCorps OutLoud series, we’re hearing from Jacksonville residents who are part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Each week, WJCT’s Lindsey Kilbride shares a conversation recorded by the StoryCorps oral history project. All the participants are linked by the local LGBTQ youth support group, JASMYN. 

In WJCT’s StoryCorps OutLoud series, we’re hearing from Jacksonville residents who are part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Each week, WJCT’s Lindsey Kilbride shares a conversation recorded by the StoryCorps oral history project. All the participants are linked by the local LGBTQ youth support group, JASMYN.

Bruce Musser and Tina Wirth are friends. Both are gay, in their 40s and serve as board members for JASMYN. But the similarities end with how they came to terms with their sexuality.

In WJCT’s StoryCorps OutLoud series, we’re hearing from Jacksonville residents who are part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Each week, WJCT’s Lindsey Kilbride shares a conversation recorded by the StoryCorps oral history project. All the participants are linked by the local LGBT youth support group, JASMYN.

In WJCT’s StoryCorps OutLoud series, we’re hearing from Jacksonville residents who are part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Each week, WJCT’s Lindsey Kilbride shares a conversation recorded by the StoryCorps oral history project. All the participants are linked by the local LGBT youth support group, JASMYN.

In WJCT’s StoryCorps OutLoud series, we’re hearing from Jacksonville residents who are part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Each week, WJCT’s Lindsey Kilbride shares a conversation recorded by the StoryCorps oral history project. All the participants are linked by the local LGBT youth support group, JASMYN.

Cindy Watson is the Executive Director of JASMYN and she's been there from the beginning, that's 20 years.

Watson and her wife Garnett Harrison remember the early days of JASMYN, when the community was far less accepting.

In WJCT’s StoryCorps OutLoud series, we’ll hear from Jacksonville residents who are part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Each week, WJCT’s Lindsey Kilbride will share a conversation recorded by the StoryCorps oral history project. All the participants are linked by the local LGBTQ youth support group, JASMYN. The organization recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Ernie Selorio Jr. was a gay teenager in the early 90s.  It was then that he and his family moved from Washington DC to Jacksonville.

For 10 years, the StoryCorps project has been collecting oral history interviews with everyday Americans.

Founded by award winning documentarian Dave Isay, StoryCorps is the largest and arguably the single most important collection of human voices ever gathered.