The Oral History Project

The McKenney Foundation received a grant in 2023 from Virginia Humanities to collect oral histories about the lived experiences of African-Americans in Petersburg. The oral histories will be preserved at the Petersburg African-American History and Cultural Center & Archives. Current and past Residents, aged 16 and up, are encouraged to participate. For more information, please call 804-481-9166.

Since we are not able to interview everyone, we are inviting the community to share memorabilia, programs, short stories, photographs, footage or anything else that illustrates their Petersburg story. Please fill out the form below to let the project team know what type of information and/or records you are interested in sharing.