PAST TO PRESENT: STUDS TERKEL’S LESSONS FOR TODAY’S AMERICA
WHO IS STUDS TERKEL? Over his 45-year career and 96-year life, Terkel amassed many awards, wrote and compiled many books, and spoke to countless politicians and celebrities, but he is most remembered for his interest in everyday people and their oral histories, which he gathered by the hundreds, with respect and great care. In many ways, his ability to see and hear people as they see themselves and let them tell their stories is more needed than ever.
PUBLIC NARRATIVE + TERKEL: Famed oral historian, author and broadcaster Louis B. “Studs” Terkel was a mentor of the organization from its founding in 1989, and helped to guide it until his death in 2008. Begun in 1994, our annual Studs Terkel Community Media Awards honor journalists whose work follows the values of Studs’ journalism. In 2007, Studs said that the award is meant for journalists who go the extra mile in reporting news “from the people who made Chicago, news that’s bottom up rather than up, down.” For over 25 years, the Terkel Awards has recognized more than 70 journalists who have taken risks in covering social issues by offering new or unusual perspectives on housing, inequality, violence, health, education and beyond.
FROM THE STUDS TERKEL RADIO ARCHIVE: www.studsterkel.wfmt.com “In 1962, [Studs Terkel] interviewed James Baldwin about his just-published novel Another Country. Baldwin observed... “It’s really a book about the nature of the Americans’ loneliness, and how dangerous that is: how hard it is here for people to establish any real communion with each other, and the chances they have to take in order to do it.” Terkel... seemed to latch onto Baldwin’s concept of “the Americans’ loneliness.” He asked Baldwin if he really thought things were better elsewhere. Yes, said Baldwin, who said he observed among the French “a certain largeness and a certain freedom” and among West Africans “joy among the people,” qualities he saw as absent from American culture. Today, Baldwin is seen as an icon who is both Black & LGBTQ. But, at the time, he struggled with selfidentifying as gay and spent many years living in France, in part, to escape America’s racism.
