How the Federal Writers’ Project Shaped a Generation of Authors

When the marble-columned entrance to the Library of Congress rose before me one morning this summer, it felt welcoming. I had come for a one-day symposium on the 1930s Federal Writers’ Project and the New Deal’s legacy, and would have the honor of speaking on one of the panels. There I was amazed by a dynamic group of young speakers who are leading a surge in research and practice of oral history and its creative offshoots. This was not what I expected for an event commemorating an agency that expired 80 years ago.

was one of them. These days he commutes to the Library of Congress as a visiting fellow researching the African American intellectuals , , and at the Library of Congress, a job he fits in alongside teaching at the University of the District of Columbia and another with the D.C. Oral History Collaborative. Benji speaks passionately about Ellison’s early work in oral history with the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), before his fame with . But he can speak to give the residents of D.C. the skills and space to document their own experience and neighborhoods.