Sound Portraits - the process

In preparation for your own interview projects, I'd like you to listen to an interview with Geneva Tinsdale, who worked as a waitress at a Greensboro, N.C., Woolworth's lunch counter in 1960 when the management refused to serve four young Black men.

Her story about that day - and the day six months later when protests forced the company to change its policy - are told in her own words.

Listen to the story. It was done as an interview, but you don't hear the interviewer's questions - that was edited out. He introduces the subject and provides context by narration, but does not "converse" with Geneva.

You may also read the transcript. Note the style changes when the speaker goes from David Isay to Geneva Tinsdale. Look carefully at her answers, and how Isay must provide the context for many of them. What challenges do you suppose he faced in doing this story? How do you think you might anticipate those kinds of challenges?