The collection is open for research, with the exception fo some restricted materials that are not available to the public.
Permission to publish material from the Bluefield Oral History Project must be obtained from Special Collections and Universtiy Archives, Virginia Tech.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Stories of Segregation in Bluefield,Virginia, Ms2024-076, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
Interivews were acquired by Special Collections and University Archives in 2023. Additional oral histories will be added to the collection as they are conducted and processed.
The processing, arrangement, and description of the Bluefield Oral History Project was completed in August 2024.
Some of this collection has been digitized and is available online.
This collection began as a research project for how segregation changes over time in Bluefield, Virginia. Bluefield was established as a railway hub that served the Appalachian coalfields of southern West Virginia. The coal produced great wealth in the region, and Bluefield was the recipient. The railroad lines that served as its economic lifeline went down the middle of the valley with high mountains on both the north and south sides. The boundary of the railroad and mountain provided the physical limitations of the town, easing the establishment of segregated neighborhoods that faced each other across the valley.
This collection was donated as a research project on the personal significance of the historically segregated neighborhoods of Bluefield, West Virginia, and Bluefield, Virginia. Gregory Galford, Vonnia Davis, Micaela Appelbaum, and Jessica Taylor interviewed residents and former residents of these segregated neighborhoods to reconstruct a previously unrecorded history of how segregated space in this regional hub has changed over time.