August Wilson’s cycle of 10 plays — all but one set in Pittsburgh — captured the Black experience in the 20th century through everyday people’s stories.
His works of fiction have inspired Voices of History, a statewide PA Humanities initiative to document and preserve Black history. The project launched here last year and moved on to Erie and Scranton in 2025, according to a news release. Soon to follow will be recordings in York, State College and Philadelphia.
A project highlight reel and the first video, “Pennley Court,” featuring bestselling author Damon Young, debuted late last month on the nonprofit’s website and YouTube in honor of Black History Month. The other 13 recordings will be added throughout March, featuring residents of the Hill District, Homewood and East Liberty.
The Pittsburgh installment highlights the resilience and contributions of Black residents who have shaped the city’s cultural and economic landscape, the news release stated.
August Wilson House, the playwright’s childhood home, and the August Wilson African American Cultural Center became key partners, including providing the recordings’ backdrops and settings. PA Humanities Senior Director of Content and Engagement Dawn Frisby Byers said it began here because her organization had a relationship with both organizations.
The other connection: She’s a Wilson fanatic who worked in broadcasting and lived in New York City for years and saw nine of his plays on Broadway. Voices of History follows how he captured the Black experience through ordinary people just living their lives.
“When you think about story collecting, archives and history, there’s a lot written about the firsts,” she said. “All that is wonderful, but what about the everyday person who was and is the backbone of their community? ‘Fences,’ a play like that, the star is a garbage man. ‘Jitney,’ the star is a taxicab driver. [These ordinary people] kept a community whole and together. They never get the spotlight on them.”
PA Humanities is an independent nonprofit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities and part of a network of 56 state humanities councils, which includes U.S. territories, across the country. “Our mission is to champion the humanities as a means to spark civic engagement, build community, educate and inspire,” according to the release.
In May, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Caste” and “The Warmth of Other Suns” Isabel Wilkerson spoke on the importance of stories that shape the Black American experience at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. After that, Frisby Byers worked with August Wilson House Board President Ervin Dyer to start the project that had been delayed by the pandemic.
The initiative follows a structured process: Community Story Circles with residents gathering to share personal memories related to family, work and migration; professional video recording of select stories enriched with historical photos; Community Watch Events with public screenings to bring communities together to celebrate and discuss the shared histories; and a digital archive to preserve them in an accessible digital repository, ensuring long-term public engagement.
The Heinz Endowments, Erie Insurance, the National Endowment for the Humanities and individual donors supported the Voices of History project in Pittsburgh, according to the release.
Wilson’s plays focused on place. Frisby Byers wanted these storytellers to take a different approach. “[We asked them to] come prepared to tell a story about a particular memory or a particular object that kind of defines your family,” she explained. “I was looking for a specificity in time and place.”
Dyer helped arrange the three story circles held last July at the August Wilson House in the Hill District, Everyday Café in Homewood and the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty. He had completed an oral history project with Hill District residents titled “Your Story Matters” and reached out to those participants, other community members, churches and groups to participate and spread the word.
Reggie Howze, the brother of former Pittsburgh councilman and city school board member Sala Udin, joined one of the circles. He grew up with Wilson, living just down the street and going to school with him. They remained friends. Howze works at the August Wilson House and became part of its history collection. “He’s an incredible storyteller. You could listen to him all day,” Dyer said.
Young’s video focuses on his memories of an East Liberty basketball court incident that shows humor, courage and a father’s love, according to the news release. The remaining stories include a reflection on the Hill District’s once-thriving Black businesses that defined the neighborhood, a push to integrate Pittsburgh’s swimming pools after that was decreed, and a look at East Liberty before urban renewal reshaped its diverse, blended communities.
Dyer, a longtime journalist and former president of the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation, is a senior editor and writer for Pitt Magazine and teaches in the university’s Department of Africana Studies. A storyteller who specializes in coverage of Black life and culture, he said these recordings provide an important narrative.
“These are incredible humans, and their human histories and their stories matter,” Dyer said. “Oral histories help us understand how people survived, but at the same time they were human. They were up against great challenges, against structures they had no control over. They gave people love and opportunity.”
And there’s more: “Because they did survive, people like me and you got to move forward. We would not be here [without them]. [They] created community where there was none. People had a place where they could connect and not demonize everyone because of their economic situation or their race.”
Frisby Byers, another PA Humanities staff member, Dyer and producer Morgan Moody selected 14 stories, different in breadth, to record.
“I wanted a sense of family and not just place,” Frisby Byers explained. “The stories we collected had a lot to do with home and home ownership. People came with stories about owning a home, or homes being destroyed.”
Each person took part in a 90-minute recording session in September, with participants bringing in photos or any documentation that elevated their stories. Moody, a Pittsburgh native who worked for ESPN and has returned to her hometown, had help in the videos’ creative direction by Terrell Robinson. The creators received permission to add in some Teenie Harris photographs from his collection at the Carnegie Museum of Art. One woman told a story about looking at that collection and finding her grandmother’s photograph in it, Frisby Byers said.
In Erie, the story circles took a different turn, with participants relating experiences mostly about church and migration there from Mississippi, Alabama and other states. In Scranton, the stories focused on community. Frisby Byers said the Black community there was small but strong. “They had a sense we all had to work together to make it,” she added.
Frisby Byers expects the stories to be different in State College, York and Philadelphia. By the time the project finishes next year, PA Humanities will have collected stories that amplify the firsthand accounts of Black community life in Pennsylvania from the 20th and 21st centuries.
“The rich and complex history of Black Pennsylvanians is integral to the state’s identity,” Frisby Byers said in the release. “Through this project, we are creating an invaluable resource for educators, researchers and the general public, ensuring that these histories remain visible.”
Dyer ended up recording one of the videos. He told the story of sitting with his grandmother as a young boy. As she sat in her rocking chair, she encouraged the second grader to talk.
“My grandmother gave me so much attention because she listened to me,” he said. The video explained what that listening “meant to my career, to becoming a journalist to coming to Pittsburgh and to the [August Wilson] House.”
He was moved by the story circles, a repeat of what he experienced in the August Wilson House’s oral history project.
“It tells you the power of stories. The power that stories have to inform us, move us and feel quite human.”
Like Frisby Byers, Dyer knows Wilson’s work is important to actualize in this project. The Black Pittsburgh history he presented, much like the August Wilson House — which took nearly 20 years to become the arts center it is today — “lifts up the stories of the humans who were behind these stories.
“It gives a voice to the reality of the history of what August has presented, brings it beyond fiction. It’s not just voices in the Hill but across Pennsylvania and across the country. That is what pleases us the most.”
Frisby Byers said that when the project ends next year, most likely PA Humanities will create a toolkit for other communities to create and record similar Black oral histories. It successfully did that with its Rain Poetry project, which also has roots in Pittsburgh.
That literacy and creative arts project worked with Assemble in Garfield, YouthPlaces Northview Heights and the Homewood Brushton YMCA’s Lighthouse afterschool programs. Students learned to write haikus, then selected 10 to display using a special paint that appears only when wet in nearby neighborhood locations. The project has moved on to Philadelphia and Johnstown and is currently underway in Reading.
PA Humanities held the Pittsburgh community watch event in December. Wintry weather hampered attendance, so Frisby Byers would love to hold another one, possibly at the Carnegie Museum of Art, which displays Teenie Harris’ historic photos.
That would be a perfect setting, Dyer said, because in his photographic career Harris captured images throughout the community. His photos, the stories and the finished videos are connected, proving to Dyer how much people, places and events are related. That’s something he finds incredible.
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.