Episode 92 Dr. Gary Joiner - "Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home"

Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home

Historian Gary Joiner sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development for the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:

0:26 1. Gary, you are one of our community’s foremost historians. Among numerous other things, you are the chair of the department of history and social sciences at Louisiana State University in Shreveport and the author or editor of 38 books.

I’m just going to jump right in today as I want to pick your brain on several different questions.

First off, one of the recurring themes of this podcast has been trying to understand why so many in this community have a negative self-image about Shreveport-Bossier as their city and home. I was at a meeting last week and someone even characterized this pervasive sentiment as a disease.

As someone who knows where we’ve been about as well as anyone, when did this “disease” start? Have we always had it? And what do you attribute it to?

16:38 2. Maybe not a super deep question. But as I delve more and more into the work on this podcast, I can’t help but think in your words that “history matters” and that one reason we may lack self-respect is because we’re not being taught who and where we’ve been locally.

I know when I was growing up that I took Louisiana History as an eighth grader. But are we being taught local history, Shreveport-Bossier history, in our schools and if not, why not?

22:40 3. Give me one of your favorite stories about our community’s past that many people locally are probably not aware of.

31:43 4. It was recently announced that LSU Shreveport and KTAL/KMSS have partnered to create the Caddo Parish Civil Rights Heritage Trail project. The series will identify the people, places, and events that significantly impacted the Civil Rights Movement in Caddo Parish, Louisiana.

In describing the project, I read a description on KTAL’s site of historic trauma. It says the following:

“Historic trauma has the power to destroy people, families, communities, and cultures. And though these subjects are difficult to discuss, historical literacy (digging into history from multiple perspectives) is crucial to understanding the lives, joys, hopes, dreams, misfortunes, and fears of those who came before us. And understanding those who came before us can help us do something significant: understand ourselves.”

Tell me about the origin of this project.

55:04 5. Tell me about the Clio App and what’s the best way to follow this project as it unfolds.