The people whom the 12-member committee calls up are usually open to speaking with them, Caldwell said; more often than not, they’re willing to host the committee at their own homes. Committee members bring their own sets of skills to the project, as well as their own contacts, Caldwell said. The people the committee interviews “understand the importance” of a project like this, Caldwell said. “They see the relevance of telling people who you are. They see that. They understand that.” When conducting interviews, committee members have found gathering interviewees in small groups to be helpful, Caldwell said. For one thing, it takes the pressure off a single person. And with more people involved, the interviewees sometimes strike up candid conversations among themselves, Caldwell said, which will “stir memories” within each of them. Caldwell explained that the group’s interview setup is pretty straightforward: The interviewer, a member of the committee, films the interviewees with a small camera mounted on a tripod as they respond to questions and talk among themselves. Sometimes the conversations are pleasant, Caldwell said, like the committee’s interview with one couple, now in their 80s, who were both 12 years old when they first met. Despite all the time that had passed since then, “You could still hear and still see the love there,” Caldwell said. Other conversations are more “painful” to have. Caldwell said that some of the people who the group has interviewed recall being disrespected in a number of ways because they were Black. One of those ways was through disparaging names. Caldwell said, in the past, Black women were often not given the same titles of respect as their White counterparts were. “You were called ‘auntie,’ ‘girl’ or whatever,” Caldwell said, rather than the titles of “Miss,” “Ms.” or “Mrs.” typically reserved for White women. In spite of these slights, African Americans found their own subtle ways to fight back and reclaim their dignity — something that Caldwell finds inspiring, and she expects others will as well. “When you sit there and you listen to somebody who has that much wisdom and has seen so much in life,” Caldwell said, “it makes you think, ‘Well, if they could handle that situation, surely I can handle what I’m going through, too.'”