Deborah Hendrix was elbow-deep in work for her new film as she reflected on her 23 years with the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program. Through SPOHP, Hendrix has ensured accessibility to over 8,000 interviews on topics such as civil rights and Native American history.
On April 12, Hendrix’s film, Oscar Mack Versus the Ku Klux Klan, will premiere at Pugh Hall. Mack, a postmaster in Kissimmee, defended himself from the Klan and was, in turn, pursued by local police.
Newspaper accounts have conflicting reports of what happened next, but the film seeks to uncover the truth through oral history interviews with Mack’s descendants.
To Hendrix, the film exemplifies the power of oral history.
“You’re doing oral histories, think about that,” she said. “They’re sharing their whole life story with you. It’s just a gift that is beyond anything you can wrap your mind around.”
SPOHP — the award-winning oral history program that covers historical topics based on social justice — conducts oral history field expeditions throughout the Deep South, on which Hendrix is a researcher and videographer. In the past, the group has traveled to the Mississippi Delta to conduct oral history interviews with former civil rights activists and leaders.
Having access to these interviews is priceless, Hendrix said, and many students who have gone on expeditions return completely changed. Some even switched career paths, choosing to pursue law or activism.
Hendrix has been with the program since 2000. She’s award-winning herself — in 2016, she won the Superior Staff Accomplishment Award for her work in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and in editing, production and preservation of digital data and storytelling.
She arrived in Gainesville in 1986, when few had access to the kind of filmmaking equipment people take for granted today. She studied graphic design at Santa Fe College to stay within the creative field, although video and film were her primary interests.
Hendrix first found SPOHP through a newspaper article and later began to volunteer with the program. She was the first to propose video-recording the interviews; but the program's namesake, Samuel Proctor, hated the idea, she said.
“There was not going to be any possibility for video,” she said. “I was trying to video on the side.”
In 2005, the program was forced to switch gears when it was allowed to interview newly appointed federal judges in Florida, but with the stipulation that they had to be on video. Hendrix knew it was her time to shine, she said, and jumped into action.
With previous knowledge of videography, Hendrix guided SPOHP through its transition to videography.
“All of a sudden, my hours kind of increased a bit,” she said.
In 2008, UF history professor and acclaimed author Paul Ortiz joined the program and pulled it into the digital era. SPOHP switched from tapes to Marantz digital audio recorders, but it wasn’t necessarily a reduction in work, Hendrix said.
Hendrix has transcribed and recorded years of interviews. In her work, she’s seen a transformation in diversity over the decades.
Not all groups have been fairly represented in oral history. Women in particular have been neglected, Hendrix said, but that’s changed in recent years.
The inadequacy of female subjects is saddening, Hendrix said. She noted that she’s seen what women had to do to achieve a sense of equity.
“Yet they persevere,” she said. “They persevere. I’m not sure why.”
Though Hendrix has been working with recordings for nearly 30 years, she has had men explain procedures to her like she’s a first-grader.
“It’s not a stereotype,” she said. “It’s getting a lot better. It’s improving.”
Contact Ella ethompson@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @elladeethompson
Ella Thompson is a fourth-year journalism major and the Fall 2024 Digital Managing Editor. She was previously the Metro Editor at The Alligator and an intern at the Las Vegas Review-Journal covering education. In her free time, she likes to cook soup, read a good book and plan her next trip.
