American250 Mobile Studio Visiting Area
The media team from America250 will be spending the day in Lexington and Rockbridge County today, Wednesday, Sept. 17, with their mobile recording studio to capture oral histories from area residents.
This is area residents’ chance to be part of the community- sourced national efforts that aim to ground – in the ambitious words of America250 Chair and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Rosie Rios – “a historic journey to build the largest oral and visual collection in our country’s history.”
America250 has chosen to represent Virginia through a tour of the Shenandoah Valley, from Winchester to Roanoke, with Lexington at the heart of its itinerary. On Wednesday, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., they’ll set up right outside the Rockbridge Historical Society Museum and Visitor Center at 106 Washington St. From 3 to 5 p.m., the studio will move to the parking lot of Natural Bridge State Park.
Inside their mobile studio, they’ll engage conversations with community leaders and “everyday people” who feel called to share their ideas on American identity, to reflect on their own place in that still-developing narrative, and to pay tribute to some of the important moments or figures they look to, more broadly. Residents and visitors are welcome to queue onsite to contribute their reflections on “Our American Story.”
Collectively, here and nationally, these interviews will score both spirited and serious chords in an inclusive “American Symphony.” Accessible through YouTube, the archive will provide a reference point to lastingly speak to our own moment in time and place, just as the 1976 bicentennial did for earlier generations, 50 years earlier.
Visit tinyurl.com/America250- StoryMobile for a 2-minute preview of the initiative.
This one-day effort complements the long-term commitments of the Rockbridge Historical Society to interview people in this area, to enrich its local community archive, and ensure its preservation and accessibility to the greater Rockbridge community. To arrange a recording with “Our American Story” – or with the RHS oral history project now spanning three years of revolutionary commemoration ahead – write to Eric Wilson at Director@RockbridgeHistory. org.
