| Established | 2004 |
|---|---|
| Co-Founders | Dave Eggers, Lola Vollen |
| Exec. Dir. | Mimi Lok |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| Homepage | http://www.voiceofwitness.org |
Voice of Witness is a nonprofit book series that uses oral history to document human rights crises and social injustices in the United States and around the world. The series has published five books that present narratives from exonerated men and women; residents of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina; undocumented workers in the United States; and persons abducted and displaced as a result of the civil war in southern Sudan.[1][2]
By using personal narratives, the series seeks to empower witnesses and survivors, generate awareness about social injustices and human rights issues, and provide documentation for educators, advocates, and policymakers.[3] The editors of Voice of Witness utilize interviews, primary source documents, and extensive fact checking to construct the stories presented in each book. Dave Eggers, Voice of Witness co-founder and author, explained the project as "a partnership between the people telling their stories and the people transmitting them to the reader." [4]
Founded by author and publisher Dave Eggers and physician and human rights scholar Lola Vollen, M.D., Voice of Witness is based in San Francisco, California. [5]
Contents |
Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated (2005)
Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath (2006)
Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives (2008)
En Las Sombras De Estados Unidos (2009) (The Spanish Language edition of Underground America.)
Out of Exile: The Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan (2008)
Critical reception for the Voice of Witness series has been positive. Publishers Weekly lauded Underground America as "no less than revelatory." [6] The San Francisco Chronicle described Out of Exile as "[e]ssential...an admirable project." Chronicle reviewer John Freeman wrote: "Many of those who do survive (the Sudanese civil war) escape with nothing but their story, something this essential collection of oral testimony records and, in a realistic way, celebrates." [7]
In its review of Surviving Justice, Boston's Weekly Dig praised the series' use of oral history: “The nature of oral history ... allows the exonerees’ stories to be poignant and indignant without the earnestness, false empathy or guilt that would normally poison such subject matter.” [8] The New Orleans Times Picayune called Voices from the Storm a "powerful book" that "draws its strength from the real voices of real New Orleanians." [9]
Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives From Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime (Tentatively scheduled for 2010) [10][11]
Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives (Tentatively scheduled for 2010) [12]
Voice of Witness has developed educational resources, including lesson plans for teaching Surviving Justice and Voices in the Storm in high school classrooms, and for instruction on oral history.[13] According to the Voice of Witness web site, the series has been utilized in both college and high school classrooms around the country, including Balboa High School in San Francisco, California, Bentley School in the San Francisco Bay Area, CUNY, Brown University, and San Francisco State University.[14] Voice of Witness and the Facing History and Ourselves organization have established a partnership to bring the series to additional classrooms.[15]
BOARD OF DIRECTORS[16]
Dave Eggers Author, Publisher
Lola Vollen, M.D., Visiting Scholar, Institute for International Studies, University of California, Berkeley; Life After Exoneration Program, Executive Director
Jill Stauffer, Asst. Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Concentration in Peace, Justice and Human Rights, Haverford College
BOARD OF ADVISORS[17]
Roger Cohn, Former Editor-in-Chief, Mother Jones
Mark Danner, Author, Professor, Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
Harry Kreisler, Executive Director, Institute for International Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Martha Minow, Dean, Harvard Law School, Harvard University
Samantha Power, Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
John Prendergast, Co-chair, The Enough Project
Orville Schell, Former Dean, Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
William T. Vollmann, Author
FOUNDING ADVISOR[18]
Studs Terkel (Deceased), Author, Oral Historian