Black Butterfly Oral History Project is a multidisciplinary storytelling initiative designed to document, preserve, and share the intergenerational histories of Black families in Baltimore, with a focus on foodways, migration, and traditional knowledge systems such as medicine-making and conjure.

A collaboration of Sache Jones of Bawdamore Preservation Society and Victor Rodgers, II of Chiccory Magazine, Our long-term goal is to create a sustainable, community-rooted storytelling platform that functions as a living archive of Black Baltimore life. We aim to preserve histories that are often underdocumented, while strengthening intergenerational connections and fostering a deeper sense of identity, pride, and cultural continuity within Black communities. Our focus on food, medicine and spiritual life aim to connect to the places where history is often lost and culture dies. Our goal for this funding is to produce 2 podcast episodes and a community dinner. Ultimately, the project will expand into a full podcast series, public programming, and a publicly accessible digital archive.

Find examples of the types of stories we intend to capture below.