The Storytelling Trust
The Storytelling Trust
 

Our Mission

The Storytelling Trust: farrago vitae documents and tells stories
that might otherwise not be told, particularly the experiences and perspectives
of those traditionally excluded from the public record.

A 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, we aim to
explore and examine the contours of the human experience,
with projects focused on individual and cultural identity.

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Historia est vitae magistra.

(History is the tutor of life.)

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We create and support arts and humanities projects that become:

 

01.
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MULTIMEDIA EXHIBITIONS

02.
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AUDIO
NARRATIVES

03.
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BOOKS

04.
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FILMS

 
 
“We tell stories not to die of life.”
— ANTJIE KROG
 
Broomsy Salter (pictured at 94 years old) became the first African-American in Freeport, Illinois to move across the “color line” in 1956, when he bought land from a Jewish man and built a house. Until 1966, African-Americans were restricted to buyi…

Broomsy Salter (pictured at 94 years old) became the first African-American in Freeport, Illinois to move across the “color line” in 1956, when he bought land from a Jewish man and built a house. Until 1966, African-Americans were restricted to buying, renting, and leasing east of Illinois 26. The east side of Freeport has a flood plain.

 

Our History

The Storytelling Trust emerged in 2008 from a community-based oral history and photography project, "Untold Stories: Freeport's African-American History," that Abbie Reese was asked to spearhead. Residents of Freeport, Illinois were interviewed and photographed, followed by a traveling multimedia gallery exhibition and an outdoor public art exhibition with six panels that each measured eight-foot by four-foot. The outdoor exhibit was installed across the street from Debate Square and coincided with the town’s sesquicentennial celebration of the Lincoln and Douglas debates, where Douglas declared his “Freeport doctrine,” a compromise on slavery.

 
 
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