Voices From the Past

Boing Boing shared an old story from the news in 1999, when recordings made in the 1940s had been digitized, so that interviews with people who were once slaves could be heard again.



Amazing, and chilling.

It reminds me of three things. One is of what I wrote about recently, about going to the MFA to see the exhibit of photos from a Nazi ghetto in WWII, and how, well, moving it was to see the photographer and his wife in the video, not just the still photos but the real people, moving.

Second, a video I saw on Facebook recently, showing people walking around England in 1900, and how much more real they seemed, in motion, than still photos can convey.



And third, something that happened to me many years ago, when I lived in Charlotte, and I had one of those NPR driveway moments, sitting in my car to hear the end of a piece. It was part of a series called Lost and Found Sound, and was a recording of a man who had, as a child, heard Lincoln give the Gettysburg Address.



All these years later, I still get chills when I think of it.