In the Fall of 2022, Matt Jones’s Oral History Techniques class conducted a set of interviews documenting the stories behind the student unrest on Eastern Michigan University’s campus from 1966-1972. Caught up in the Civil Rights Movement, anti-war protests, women’s liberation, fights for student rights, and a hometown serial killer, EMU found its place within the greater cultural shifts taking place on college campuses across the country. The narrators taking part in this project range from student activists, to administrators, to police officers, each providing a unique perspective in this story. Five Days in May reflects a period of time in EMU’s history where the campus made sure its voices were heard.
This oral history project explores EMU's partnership with Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County in providing on-campus housing for twelve Afghan families who fled their homes when the Taliban took over in 2021. The families stayed in the Westview Apartments from January to June of 2022.
In the pandemic semester, Winter, 2021, students from lecturer Matt Jones' Oral History Techniques course interviewed participants in the effort to change the EMU logo and mascot from the Huron to the Eagle. Students sought to illuminate the historical context around the logo/mascot change, causes and effects of the change, and the sometimes rancorous public and private meetings held by university administration to assess the negative impact of the existing Huron logo and mascot and to select a new EMU logo and mascot.
This collection contains oral histories with Ypsilanti and Washtenaw County veterans collected by the Ypsilanti District Library, Ypsilanti Rotary, and the Eastern Michigan University Archives for the Veterans History Project. The VHP is part of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center which aims to document, preserve, and make accessible the stories of veterans from World War I on. Interviews with local veterans are housed at the Eastern Michigan University Archives in addition to the LOC. Oral histories continue to be processed by the American Folklife Center and the collection is updated regularly.
In 2021, Eastern Michigan University Archives lecturer Matt Jones began documenting the story of Ypsilanti’s Human Rights Ordinance #1279 in an effort to explore the ways in which local queer activism has evolved multi-generationally in Ypsilanti. What began as a refusal of service by a local print shop to a small EMU student group quickly turned into a years-long battle over who was deserving of basic human rights. To the LGBTQ activists and community members documented here, they had always been present in the community: working, paying taxes, painting their houses, mowing their lawns, attending council meetings, and even serving on council. This ordinance battle was about more than just LGBT rights—it was about protecting the human rights of all Ypsilantians.
