Table Of ContentThe University of Akron Press
Akron, Ohio
Copyright © 2017 by Carolyn Behrman, Bill Lyons, Patricia Hill, James Slowiak, Donna Webb,
and Amy Shriver Dreussi
All rights reserved • First Edition 2017 • Manufactured in the United States of America •
All inquiries and permission requests should be addressed to the Publisher,
The University of Akron Press, Akron, Ohio 44325-1703.
21 20 19 18 17 5 4 3 2 1
isbn: 978-1-629220-52-9 (paper)
isbn: 978-1-629220-53-6 (ePDF)
isbn: 978-1-629220-54-3 (ePub)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Behrman, Carolyn, author. | Lyons, William, 1960– coauthor.
Title: The Akron Story Circle Project : rethinking race in classroom and community / Carolyn
Behrman, Bill Lyons, Patricia Hill, James Slowiak, Donna Webb, Amy Shriver Dreussi.
Description: First edition. | Akron, Ohio : The University of Akron Press, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017005526 (print) | LCCN 2017005607 (ebook) | ISBN 9781629220529
(paperback : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9781629220536 (PDF) | ISBN 9781629220543 (ePub) |
ISBN 9781629220536 (ePDF)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—Race relations—Study and teaching (Higher) | Storytelling—
Social aspects—United States. | Storytelling—Political aspects—United States. | Akron Story
Circle Project. | Storytelling—Ohio—Akron.
Classification: LCC E184.A1 B347 2017 (print) | LCC E184.A1 (ebook) |
DDC 305.800973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017005526
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ansi z39.48–1984. ∞
Cover design by Chris Hoot
The Akron Story Circle Project was designed and typeset by Amy Freels, with assistance from
Tyler Krusinski. The typeface is Adobe Caslon with Futura display. It is printed on sixty-pound
natural and bound by Bookmasters of Ashland, Ohio.
Contents
Foreword
John O’Neal and Theresa Holden vii
Introduction
James Slowiak 1
1 Teaching about Racial Conflict with Story Circles
Bill Lyons 14
2 Let My Story Speak for Me: Story Circles as
a Critical Pedagogical Tool
Patricia S. Hill 51
3 Story Circles and the Social Science Toolkit
Carolyn Behrman and Sandra Spickard Prettyman 76
4 Once Upon a Time
Story Circles and Public Art in Cascade Village
Donna Webb 112
5 Story Circles: A Powerful Tool in the
Multifaceted Toolkit for Addressing Race in University
Cocurricular Programing
Amy Shriver Dreussi 152
6 The Akron Color Line Project Performance
James Slowiak 180
7 Concluding Thoughts: Storytelling and Democracy 241
Foreword
The Pinnacle of the Color Line Project
Theresa Holden and John O’Neal
Over a ten-year period, from 1999 to 2009, we first created and, with our
partners, helped to run Color Line Projects in six cities in the United States.
Our partners were colleges, universities, and community or city arts organi-
zations. The goals were lofty and challenging and we had many memorable
moments that came close to achieving the mission and goals of the Color Line
Project. The Color Line Project at the University of Akron not only met each
of the goals, but also far surpassed our dreams for this important work.
The Color Line Project (CLP) was a multi-year, multi-community ini-
tiative of our organization Junebug Productions. CLP was a process
designed to catalyze creative engagements among artists, educators, com-
munity activists, and their diverse constituencies. These engagements were
intended to lead to the creation of high-quality art and to heighten our col-
lective understanding of the dramatic impact of the Civil Rights Movement.
Equally important, this process helps us work together to create activities,
programs, and projects that challenge injustice today and improve the
quality of life for all.
The Color Line Project was responsive to the fact that, despite its
importance, the Civil Rights Movement is little known or understood and
is devalued sometimes even by the people who participated in it. The project
is also responsive to the need for archives of primary source material about
vii
viii Foreword
the period. There is a certain urgency to the work because so many of those
who were there are dying now. Most movement documentation was focused
on leaders such as M. L. King Jr., while the grassroots salt-of-the-earth
types, without whom there would have been no movement, have hardly
been documented at all. These are the people whose stories the Color Line
Project sought to prioritize.
Our Color Line Projects were carried out in the following six places:
Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ; Palm Beach Community College, Lake
Worth, FL; Cincinnati Arts Association, Cincinnati, OH; Flint Cultural
Center Corporation, Flint, MI; Reston Community Center, Reston, VA;
and The University of Akron, Akron, OH. The projects have been as unique
as each of their locations. They each gave their Color Line Projects unique
titles. The thousands of stories collected have created a rich treasure trove,
which in itself proves the importance of such a project. However, the depth
and width of the Akron Color Line Project, called the Akron Story Circle
Project, was superlative.
The Akron Story Circle Project was and still is an incredible success
because it discovered the power of stories. Our national CLP focused on stories
because we believe people reveal more of their lives through their stories than
through their arguments. Arguments can spawn defensiveness and may or
may not reveal many telling insights. Stories on the other hand will always be
insightful and authoritative and often will be entertaining as well.
We believe that by involving artists in the process of collecting stories
from their communities and using them in their work, we strengthen the
connections between the artists and their respective communities. When
the communities see themselves reflected in the images created by their
artists about them, the people will be made stronger, clearer and prouder
of who they are and what they have done. Artists will emerge with stronger
insights and appreciation of their roles in the life of their communities.
We believe that when educators see the stories of the people in their
communities as vital to local and world issues and history, their students
and the community will also grow stronger, and the educators will discover
yet more ways to engage their students with their communities. And this
is exactly what happened at the University of Akron.
As is evident in what follows, the Akron Project met each of our
national CLP goals and strategies:
Theresa Holden and John O’Neal ix
National Color Line Project Goals:
• to create public awareness of the impact of the Civil Rights Movement
and the roles played by ordinary people in each locality;
In Akron: The CLP project and story circles were used in the Rethink-
ing Race week. Through invited speakers and the stories told, much
was shared about the Civil Rights Movement; a reminder to both those
who remembered the Movement and for those learning about it for the
first time, of how far we have come, but how far we still have to go.
• to identify and engage local artists, educators, and activists in each com-
munity to collect the personal stories and oral histories of community
residents and to help these artists, educators and activists find ways to use
the stories and the process of collecting them in their own work;
In Akron: Six incredible professors, Carolyn Behrman, Amy Shriver
Dreussi, Pat Hill, Bill Lyons, Jim Slowiak, and Donna Webb, from six
different departments, all took on the CLP with an energy and dedica-
tion unsurpassed. The professors welcomed us into their classrooms,
where we offered our ideas and techniques to their students. Then with
incredible creativity, each professor, using the story circle method, created
projects for their students that met the educational goals of their subjects.
Their students reached out into the wider community and used the vast
resource of individual stories to carry out their inspired projects.
• to empower communities to hold their artists and educators account-
able to the communities’ collective interests;
In Akron: The stories collected were “returned” to their storytellers in
several ways, which are covered in this volume. For instance, a play
derived from community stories is offered back to the people who told
the stories; beautiful pieces of pottery, inspired by stories, are placed
back in the that community for their appreciation. In each of the subject
areas, the students whose projects reached into the community to
gather stories “gave back” to that community, or will eventually, by
what they have learned in their subject through the valuable insights
they received from those very stories.
National Color Line Project Strategies:
• Local artists will use the collected stories and oral histories to make
art;
