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A story might be a legend, a romance, an anecdote, a chronicle, a recital, a description. A story, true or fictitious, might be designed to interest, to amuse, or, perhaps, to instruct the listener. A story is a narration of the events in the life of a person.
The telling of oral stories is something shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, preserving culture and instilling moral values. Traditionally, oral stories were committed to memory and then passed from generation to generation. People get different meanings out of stories. Sometimes learning to understand those meanings can change lives and make the future better: to decide where you want to go helps to understand where you – where we – have been.
Memory is retaining and REVIVING facts, events and impressions.
Just as individuals make up a community, a collection of individual memories brought together could be said to create a community of memory. Niagara’s community of memory hosts some extraordinary Black Canadian stories – as a final stop for Freedom Seekers travelling on the Underground Railroad and through the actions of the Coloured Corps’ in the War of 1812 and beyond.
But OUR STORIES are of a smaller scale. Entertaining or instructive, sometimes both at the same time, OUR STORIES are the personally held recollections of Black Canadian seniors who live, lived, or grew-up in the Niagara Region.
OUR STORIES bring the daily contributions of individuals to their communities, small and large, and to the development of the greater Canadian society, through a different lens of recognition. OUR STORIES were available only through the spoken word coming from the hearts and minds of local Black Canadian seniors still living in Niagara.
Collective memory is any set of memories passed from one generation to the next. A community is made up of its collective memory. We hope OUR STORIES will influence your community to preserve its heritage, and its individuals, through YOUR stories.
