They’re full of promise.
We most often find them among us during the summer, when they’re in or just out of college, getting their feet wet and finding their way.
We call them interns, summer help, any number of things.
They are, of course, our future.
It’s a habit of codgers of my age of sooner or later remarking on how “green” they are.
But to someone who sees of the gray in the mirror every morning, green seems the better shade..
So, I’m celebrating my 69th birthday today by writing about three people whose combined ages are less than mine – and who seem to have a greater sense of where they’re going than I did at their age.
All are part of AmeriCorps’ Ohio History Corps, one of two history-related entities in the national AmeriCorps service program (Yay, Ohio!!!)
Jessica Baloun, Alex Corpuz and Adam Al-Jarani all came to Springfield two Wednesdays back for Black History Community Scanning Day, during which they helped to scan and collect information about local Black families that will be kept in the archives of the Clark County Historical Society. (Yay, Springfield!)
It was the project they and seven colleagues collaborated on for their annual Community Service Day. The word annual here allows me to correct an impression I’ve given: They are involved in a year-long, not just a summer, program.
And it’s one that’s helped them see into the future.
“There are so few paid opportunities in this kind of work,” Jessica Baloun told me. “I just came in looking for something that paid” in the field.
She also came through the door to lend a hand to the Trumbull County Historical Society’s documentary cat herding – a project that requires it to gather and inventory information on historical buildings scattered across 25 townships.
In addition to working on specific projects like that, Baloun told me, History Corps members’ are trained in curatorial skills like how to treat mold on artifacts, conduct oral histories interviews and host local history events.
Following the motto of “I do, we do, you do,” she explained, “(Ohio History Corps) members use these trainings to assist in capacity-building projects with the end goal of leaving local history organizations with the skills and knowledge to continue to grow.”
In the process, Baloun has learned at a much earlier age the fundamental truths I learned over decades hanging out at the Clark County Historical society: Appreciation for “the time and effort and love” brought to the work by local volunteers and “how diverse and vital working with history is” because “preserving the past plays a key role in developing the future of local communities.”
What most impressed me was a comment she made after the scanning day in Springfield: “We are very lucky to have so many people trust us.”
It’s the feeling I’ve repeatedly had over decades spent writing about local history – and one that leads to a sense of responsibility those in history have toward the people whose stories they are telling.
And she is not the only one.
Alex Corpuz’s hope going into the scanning event was this: “I want people to see how deeply human history is felt, and how much we can do to ensure it stays that way.”
Springfielders familiar with the Hattie Moseley story will find further common ground with Corpuz and the project she’s been involved in at her work with Ohio Humanities, the organization she’s been paired with.
“I’ve been assisting with archival research for the Lincoln School Story …. Lincoln School was a segregated Black school in Hillsboro, Ohio, that a group of mothers protested at.
“They marched their children on the white schools every day for two years to push integration while they also pushed a case through the courts with the help of the NAACP.”
The protests took place in the mid-1950s, just after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.
“I’ve been sorting through newspapers, school board meeting minutes, and NAACP records to support the oral histories that Ohio Humanities collected from some of the children who marched,” Corpuz said.
Her service at Ohio Humanities seems perfect for the young woman who enjoyed physics and engineering enough at the beginning of college to dream of teaching it but, in a time when STEM education is experiencing a heyday, has shifted to the Humanities.
“Being able to do AmeriCorps has shown me this whole world of humanities and public history” and, along with it, “the wonder” of talking with people who have experienced history, she said.
We now arrive at Adam Al-Jarani, who grew up in Troy and whose story I most identify with because he seems to have discovered his path to the future in a way frighteningly close to the way I found mine when I walked out of college and into the newsroom at the Madison Press.
“For me personally, it was just kind of dumb luck,” he said.
After graduating from George Mason University last year, he went on a family vacation and, with an empty summer stretched in front of him, was “just Googling around” for history jobs when “I stumbled across AmeriCorps.”
“Luckily for me, the National Afro-American Museum was having trouble finding someone,” said, and he was able to leverage his minor in history and plans to go to graduate school in the field into a position.
Al-Jarani said it’s been “a wonderful opportunity to get your feet wet in the stuff” – and said it with the joy of a child splashing in the middle of a curbside puddle.
“I’ve been sort of bouncing between everything” from “how to handle objects, how do you research, how you actually write this stuff for the public” and – particularly important at his service site: “How do you write it from the proper perspective?”
He also had the chance to help design the Kwanzaa Exhibit at Kwanzaa Exhibit at Ohio history’s Big House, the History Connection’s museum in Columbus.
As important, he has been helping curator Derek Pridemore in trying to solve a fun and fascinating mystery: Whether the first Black comic book superhero was Buckeye Jay Jackson’s Bungleton Green or the Bronze Bomber credited to the Golden State’s William Alexander.
That’s sent him into back editions of the Los Angeles Tribune, where he encountered the strip, but found the name attached to it was one of Alexander’s friends, not Alexander.
Then came the common “can’t get there from here” moment all researchers confront when he found that the critical information existed in editions of the paper older than the ones available in the collection he’d been relying on.
“We’re still searching for a lot of this material, which is the hard part,” Adam said.
On the other hand, his path to the future seems easier.
“I’ve always loved history but worried about whether I would enjoy doing any of this work,” he said.
“This is what I want to do, this is what I’m pretty good at, and it can be the jumping off point for a career.”
And he has company.
Baloun, who graduated from Brunswick High School near Cleveland and earned a BA in History and International Studies from Miami University in Oxford will be moving on to a Master of Public History program at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.
Juggling life logistics with a husband in the Ohio National Guard, Corpuz is hoping to get a master’s degree in history or gender studies with a focus on public humanities.
To which I say: Happy birthday to me.
And for anyone interested in helping me celebrate my 70th birthday, the Ohio History Connection is accepting applications for AmeriCorps Members to serve in the Ohio History Service Corps. The service term will be Sept. 13, 2023, to Aug. 31, 2024. Benefits include a living allowance ($20,000), health insurance, eligibility for childcare assistance, professional development, and the ability for members to place qualifying student loans into forbearance for the duration of their service term. Additionally, members who successfully complete 1,700 hours of service will receive an education award the equivalent of a Pell Grant ($6,895).
For more details, go to www.ohiohistory.org/americorps.
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