state Oklahoma city Detroit parish Vernon Died in 2020 American Women Black History state Oklahoma city Detroit parish Vernon

Ola Mae Spinks (1914 – 2020), librarian who helped organize historic “Slave Narratives”

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legacy.com

Ola Mae Spinks was a retired librarian who led the team that organized the historic “Slave Narratives” in the U.S.

Library of Congress.Raised in the historic all-Black community of Vernon, Oklahoma, Spinks settled in Detroit as an adult, where she taught first grade before becoming a middle school librarian.

A few years before her 1976 retirement, she volunteered to begin organizing a collection of narratives that tell the stories of slaves in their own words.

Gathered during the Great Depression by public works employees, the narratives weren’t easily useable before Spinks and a friend began their organizational work.

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