When I first started this project, my goal was to record simple oral histories from the men and women who attended Shades Cahaba High School. I had no plan for these recordings other than to donate them to a library for safekeeping. The oral history project turned into a podcast and blog and then became a book.
I eventually made it back to the library, where I donated copies of my book. You can find them at the Homewood Library and in the Southern History Department of the Linn-Henly Research Library located in downtown Birmingham. Books have also been donated to school libraries at Shades Cahaba Elementary, Homewood High School, and Shades Valley High School.
Books are easy to donate, but I didn’t know what was to become of my podcast. There is only so long I will stream it through a podcast platform due to costs. But I did find a solution. I am happy to say that The State of Alabama Department of Archives and History has accepted my donation of my book and all the episodes of my podcast. These items will be housed in their reference collection.
While this website won’t be around forever, and neither will I, it is a great feeling to know that the research I did and the stories told to me, will now be in a place where future historians will be able to reference information about Shades Cahaba School.
