The Kitty Oliver Collection

The Kitty Oliver Collection consists of correspondence, personal and professional papers, photographs, newspaper clippings, printed materials, and awards of Sotuh Florida journalist and educator Kitty Oliver.

The collection also contains the Race and Change Project, a group of multiple oral history interviews with African-Americans, European-Americans, and immigrants regarding their memories growing up in Broward County, the United States, and other countries. Subjects include family and community lifestyle, race relations and societal change from the late 1920's through the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and desegregation. The collection contains audio and visual content of participants from the Race and Change Project including research composed by students taught by Kitty Oliver, and an essay written by Deborah Works entitled "Historical Sketches and Rare Glimpses of the North Fork of the New River: a history of its natural and human environment" (2001). The majority of Dr. Oliver’s questionnaires, transcripts and interviews consist of ongoing research study of race and ethnic relations, geographical history and social change through the collection of oral histories of Whites, Blacks/African-Americans and immigrants of various Hispanic/Latinx, Caribbean and Asian backgrounds. Research sites include the South Florida cities of Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Miami, Opa-locka, Delray Beach and Boca Raton; North Fork and Liberia – historically significant Black/African-American communities; towns along Florida’s landmark Lake Okeechobee; Stranahan High School in Fort Lauderdale; and Ghana, West Africa – where women who have experienced America’s racial climate shared their stories.