Explore the Projects


Stories for All brings together over forty community and University of Kansas partner projects. This page enables you to identify partner projects that interest you and takes you to their websites.

You can search and filter projects by topic, partner, or digital genre. Please contact storiesforall@ku.edu if you have any difficulties.
A black and white photo of students in a classroom

“I, Too, Have a Voice”: Authentic Stories from the Brown v. Board Experience in Topeka, Kansas

Topeka has a wealth of citizens who can recall the impact of the Brown v. Board decision on their lives and within the Topeka community before and after the historic decision.
A tent with a tarp over it with a sign in front with stylized text reading "Wake up Grateful"

“Unsettled Lawrence”: Challenging Collective Memory of Settlement Through the Oral and Public Histories of Unhoused Populations in Lawrence

We often tell the history of Lawrence, Kansas from the perspective of settlement in the “great American desert.” Even moments of dis-settlement, such as Quantrill’s Raid, are couched as victorious resettlement. Such a narrative elevates settling (often by white “homesteaders”) while stigmatizing other forms of occupancy as non-settlement.
Nasir Anthony Montalvo in front of a display of images from the project

{B/qKC}: Black/queer Kansas City

Black/queer Kansas City, stylized as {B/qKC}, is a digital archive, historical anthology and moving exhibit that educates audiences on the contributions of local Black LGBTQIA2S+ community members––in turn, liberating their histories from racism and homophobia-fueled erasure.
a group of people marching

An Era of Rights: Kansas City’s Struggle for Equality, 1950-1980

Jason Roe


Jason Roe

Digital History Specialist Kansas City Public Library

David LaCrone


David LaCrone

Digital Branch Manager, Kansas City Public Library Kansas City Public Library

Katie Sowder


Katie Sowder

Digital History Collections Librarian, Kansas City Public Library Kansas City Public Library
We are beginning a digital history project that will document and analyze the major events and themes of the Civil Rights struggle in Kansas City.
a group of students in classroom

Building Black Kansas City

Carmaletta Williams


Carmaletta Williams

Executive Director, Black Archives of Mid-America Black Archives of Mid-America
Building Black Kansas City is an oral history project focusing on the African American experience in Kansas City, MO in the mid twentieth century, beginning at the end of World War II. These stories will chronicle the building of Black Kansas City through varying aspects of its culture, collecting and making accessible the voices of individuals who might not otherwise have an opportunity to share their personal stories from a bygone era.

COVID-19 Stories

Kathryn Conrad


Kathryn Conrad

Professor and Chair of English, University of Kansas University of Kansas

Ani Kokobobo


Ani Kokobobo

Associate Professor and Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Kansas University of Kansas
“COVID-19 stories” includes formal narratives, social media stories, snapshots, drawings, or anything else that captures experiences of the pandemic in Douglas County, Kansas. The gathered stories will be collected in a digital, open access medium and together will illuminate the shared vulnerabilities that connect us to each other.
people fishing by the lake

Digital Douglas County History

Brad Allen


Brad Allen

Executive Director, Lawrence Public Library Lawrence Public Library

Melissa Fisher Isaacs


Melissa Fisher Isaacs

Information Services Coordinator, Lawrence Public Library Lawrence Public Library
The Lawrence Public Library launched this project in partnership with the Watkins Museum of History in 2017. A portal to digital local history, Digital Douglas County History uses Omeka, an open source web-publishing platform, as its framework.

Dockum Drug Store Sit-In Virtual Reality Project

Ebony Clemons-Ajibolade


Ebony Clemons-Ajibolade

Past President of the Board, The Kansas African American Museum Kansas African American Museum

Denise Sherman


Denise Sherman

Executive Director, The Kansas African American Museum Kansas African American Museum
On July 19, 1958, a group of Wichita students began a movement, the Dockum Drug Store Sit-In, that would become a critical moment in the history of ending segregation. The student activists exhibited the attributes, characteristics, and skills of emerging leaders. Through their planning, preparation, organization, commitment, respect, and dedication, they effected change during a very volatile time.
A group of people standing beneath a tree

Finding La Yarda: A digital storytelling art installation

Marlo Angell


Marlo Angell

Project Director/ Filmmaker, Lawrence Arts Center Lawrence Arts Center

Peter Jasso


Peter Jasso

Filmmaker, Incomplete Films Incomplete Films

Ben Ahlvers


Ben Ahlvers

Exhibitions Director, Lawrence Arts Center Lawrence Arts Center

Blanca Herrada


Blanca Herrada

Exhibitions Coordinator, Lawrence Arts Center Lawrence Arts Center

Ann Dean


Ann Dean

Photographer, Lawrence Arts Center Lawrence Arts Center
Finding La Yarda is an immersive multimedia art experience recreating a room from La Yarda, the housing unit built for Mexican American railroad workers in Lawrence, Kansas from 1920-51. Using film, sound, art and digital storytelling practices, Finding La Yarda brings oral history to life by taking audiences on a cultural journey through time and place.

From Disability Rights to Disability Justice in Kansas: Reflecting on the First Fifty Years, Anticipating Better Futures

Ray Mizumura-Pence


Ray Mizumura-Pence

Associate Teaching Professor, Department of American Studies University of Kansas
The project chronicles the pursuit of disability rights and justice in Kansas as an ongoing struggle. Some fifty years ago, a disability rights movement emerged in the United States along with passage of federal laws mandating accessibility and forbidding discrimination. This movement has expanded, diversified, and responded to myriad challenges.
Backpackers walking on a dirt road

Kansas: An Eclogue

Patrick Ross


Patrick Ross

Independent Filmmaker Independent Storytellers

Joshua Nathan


Joshua Nathan

Independent Filmmaker Independent Storytellers
KANSAS: An Eclogue will be a full-length documentary film. The project evolved from a walking journey across the state of Kansas by the film’s co-directors, Patrick Ross and Joshua Nathan, independent filmmakers from Kansas, now living in Los Angeles, CA. In more than 35 hours of filmed interviews, they captured stories about rural/small-town Kansas life.
people gathered at the Gaslight for the Queer Voices event

Queer Voices

Courtney Farr


Courtney Farr

Chair of Community Engagement Lawrence PRIDE
Queer Voices gathers local LGBTQ+ members together for evenings of story telling from our community. Speakers share true stories from their lives that run the gamut from historic protests, bad first dates, to the dangers and joys of existing in Kansas as a queer person. With the support of Stories for All, participants will be able to opt in to having their stories recorded to be added to an archive of queer experiences in this area.
a group of workers with hats

Reclaiming Home: Remembering the Topeka Bottoms

Valerie Mendoza


Valerie Mendoza

Independent Public Historian Washburn University

Matt Jacobson


Matt Jacobson

Professor, Film and Media Studies University of Kansas

Donna Rae Pearson


Donna Rae Pearson

Local Historian, Kitchen Table History Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library
“Reclaiming Home” will tell the story of Topeka’s Bottoms neighborhood through oral history, a documentary and art. In the 1950s and ’60s, more than 3,000 Topekans were forced to leave their homes and businesses in the Bottoms district in downtown to make way for new real estate development as part of the Urban Renewal Project.
a group of players.

Stories of African-American Life in Lawrence

This project will collect stories from local black families about the racial history of Lawrence, KS. In recent years, the local NAACP chapter has worked with the city and the Equal Justice Initiative to bring high-profile moments of local racism to light. But for every moment of high-profile racism, there are dozens of untold stories of the black experience.
poster colored and few people are painted over it.

The Chicano Movement in Kansas

Valerie Mendoza


Valerie Mendoza

Independent Public Historian Washburn University
This project consists of oral histories of Kansas Chicano Movement leaders from the 1970s.These activists drew inspiration from the national Chicano Movement and their initiatives impacted the Kansas Latinx population in ways that reverberate to this day in the areas of civil rights, educational opportunities and voting power.
Under the Rainbow Logo

Under the Rainbow: Oral Histories of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (GLBTQ) People in Kansas

Tami Albin


Tami Albin

Associate Librarian, Center for Faculty/Staff Initiatives and Engagement University of Kansas
Over the last 10-15 years there has been a noticeable increase in interest in the field of queer rural studies to correct for previous assumptions that queer history was always urban and usually on the coast. Yet, even within the scholarship that has been produced, Kansas is frequently overlooked as a site where GLBTQ people exist and have lived for a very long time.
Marla Quilts presentation and quilt

Untold Stories: Former Enslaved Americans Who Sought Freedom in Lawrence, KS

Marla Arna Jackson


Marla Arna Jackson

Director African American Quilt Museum and Textile Academy
“Untold Stories: Former Enslaved Americans Who Sought Freedom in Lawrence, KS” shines a light on explores the often-overlooked reality of life for the previously enslaved, who continued to struggle to achieve equality long after the war.

Wichita Nonwhite Business Owners tell Their Stories

Jay Price


Jay Price

Professor of History and Director of the Local and Community History Program Wichita State University

Sue Abdinnour


Sue Abdinnour

Omer Distinguished Professor in Business Wichita State University

Robert Weems


Robert Weems

Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History Wichita State University
Nonwhite entrepreneurs rarely appear in broad-based histories or surveys of American enterprise. Existing studies of ethnic/nonwhite businesses focus upon commercial operations; this project gives priority to illuminating the motivations of nonwhite individuals to become entrepreneurs.