BRP receives $10,000 Grant for Oral Histories

Earlier this week the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation announced that it has received a $10,000 grant from the National Parks Foundation that will allow for the collection of a number of important oral histories.

The focus of this oral history project will be to record the first-hand accounts of the people who helped to build the parkway, including the Civilian Conservation Corps crews from the 1930’s and 1940’s. The project will also seek to conduct oral histories of the culturally diverse groups traditionally not associated with the parkway, including African-American communities, some of whom worked in racially segregated CCC camps, Cherokees who formerly lived in areas where the southern terminus of the parkway lies, and the descendants of Italian-American and Spanish-American stone masons brought from Europe to construct the intricate stone-work associated with the parkway’s bridges, walls, and overlooks.

For more information on the project you can click here.


Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com