Hopkinsville museum launches podcast featuring oral history interviews

The Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County has launched a new podcast titled “Voices of Hopkinsville: In Their Own Words,” which features existing oral history interviews in the museum collection.

“The museum currently has approximately 75 oral history interviews from five different thematic collections,” executive director Alissa Keller said in a press release. “These interviews represent a broad range of local people and their experiences.”

The first episode presents part of an interview with sisters Gwenda Motley and Valerie Watkins. It is available through Spotify. Their interview centers “around the experience of desegregation and the end of the Jim Crow era.”

New episodes of the “Voices” podcast will be released every Wednesday.

“Oral histories add to our historical record by providing personal stories about local history that may not be found in written sources,” Keller said in the release.

The local museum partners with the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky to expand the local collection.

Anyone who is interested in sharing their story through an interview should contact Keller at the museum. Her email address is akeller@museumsofhopkinsville.org