The Legacies Project

04/14/2026

Citizens targeted by their own government, while their neighbors look on helplessly. Sound familiar?
But while the rest of us move on with our lives, the victims don’t have that option.
Case in point: May Watanabe. May tells her Legacies Project team at Skyline High School in Ann Arbor what happened when she was nineteen-years-old – not much older than the students themselves. Seventy-four years later, those memories still cut deeply.

03/26/2026

Tomorrow, 3/27, is National Theater Day, and what better time to showcase a woman who has made monumental strides in the theater than during Women’s History Month! Today we honor Mary Ellen Guinn, a narrator with a very special talent and love for all things performance. Even as young as 5 years old, shortly after World War II, Mary’s parents would take her to ballet and opera, nurturing her early love for the performing arts. In her early 20s, she moved to New York and joined the Robert Joffrey Ballet Company. Additionally, her love for the theater brought her a different kind of love—Mary Ellen met and eventually married Leslie Guinn, whom she met at a summer theater program in Cape Cod (who may or may not be featured soon!)

03/12/2026

March is Women’s History Month, and today we celebrate one of our many remarkable female narrators, Anan Ameri. An immigrant, visionary, and lifetime advocate, Ameri is the founder of the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Throughout her life, she has fought for women’s rights, amplified underrepresented voices, and worked to preserve and share the stories of Arab American communities. Her dedication to these causes inspired history and change. Who's a woman in your life that exhibits these strong qualities? Let us know in the comments!

02/26/2026

For our second feature of Black History month, we would like to shine a light on Shirley Beckley. She was a civil rights activist, education advocate, and police reform leader, all while raising 3 children as a single mother. She marched for more Black teachers and administrators, and was even arrested during a race riot at Pioneer High School in 1971. She worked tirelessly until she passed in April 2025. These are her thoughts on how she can help future students.

02/19/2026

For our first legacy feature of Black History Month, we honor Louise Adams, a woman whose commitment to Black education created opportunity and change for students of color. Did you have a teacher that left a lasting impact on you? Let us know down below!

06/25/2025

Sadly, as we mark the tenth anniversary of the landmark Obergefell vs. Hodges Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, hard-won rights of the LGBTQ community are under assault on many fronts. While there will still be celebrations, the undercurrent of the menace so many are experiencing will be palpable.
To show our support for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, we at the Legacies Project offer the story of Ben Helmke, a former wheat farmer, musician, Presbyterian minister, husband, and father of three – who, in his fifties, came out to his wife and children. It wasn’t an easy decision and, as Ben says, “that was a rough couple of years.”
But five years after his wife, Polly, died – he still writes letters to his late wife every year – Ben met the man who would be his longtime partner, Len Quenon.
It took courage for Ben to come out when he did and, while it made for some hard times, ultimately, it led to him being able to live his life as his true self and to find a partner with whom he lived happily for twenty-five years.
We at the Legacies Project know that these kinds of honest, intergenerational exchanges chip away at the fear that underlies bigotry; and the thoughtful and sensitive story Ben’s team of Skyline High students produced on Ben is testimony to the power of those exchanges.
While the LGBTQ community is facing rough times now, hopefully, someday soon, there will be happier days ahead.
In the meantime, we hope everyone can take some inspiration from Ben’s story.

Our mission is to preserve the stories of our elders and, in the process, remind ourselves that they are cherished sources of cultural wisdom and first-hand witnesses to history.

06/25/2025

Sadly, as we mark the tenth anniversary of the landmark Obergefell vs. Hodges Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, hard-won rights of the LGBTQ community are under assault on many fronts. While there will still be celebrations, the undercurrent of the menace so many are experiencing will be palpable.

To show our support for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, we at the Legacies Project offer the story of Ben Helmke, a former wheat farmer, musician, Presbyterian minister, husband, and father of three – who, in his fifties, came out to his wife and children. It wasn’t an easy decision and, as Ben says, “that was a rough couple of years.”

But five years after his wife, Polly, died – he still writes letters to his late wife every year – Ben met the man who would be his longtime partner, Len Quenon.

It took courage for Ben to come out when he did and, while it made for some hard times, ultimately, it led to him being able to live the rest of his life as his true self and find a partner with whom he lived happily for twenty-five years.

We at the Legacies Project know that these kinds of honest, intergenerational exchanges chip away at the fear that underlies bigotry; and the thoughtful and sensitive story Ben’s team of Skyline High students produced on Ben is testimony to the power of those exchanges.

While the LGBTQ community is facing rough times now, hopefully, someday soon, there will be happier days ahead.

In the meantime, we hope everyone can take some inspiration from Ben’s story

Our mission is to preserve the stories of our elders and, in the process, remind ourselves that they are cherished sources of cultural wisdom and first-hand witnesses to history.

05/14/2025

This was meant for May 1, but you get the point...

04/30/2025

Sad news from all of us here at Nice Work Public Media/The Legacies Project. One of our newest board members and a Skyline High Narrator from 2018, Shirley Beckley, passed away, Tuesday, April 15, 2025.

I just mentioned Shirley in a post I did this past February. I’d been pleased and honored to be her guest at a screening of “Letter to the West Side” at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, a documentary that tells the story of Ann Arbor’s Black community and how that community has been gentrified out of their old neighborhood. Preserving the history of that neighborhood was just one of Shirley’s many causes — fair and affordable housing was another one — and she figured prominently in the film. After the closing credits I turned to Shirley — she was sitting behind me — and, using the late John Lewis’s terminology, told her she was “good trouble,” which she certainly was.

I got to know Shirley pretty well when she was in Legacies at Skyline High; and I did some additional behind-the-scenes shooting with her afterward. So, not only is Shirley’s student-produced story and raw interview in our online archives, the footage I shot with her appears throughout our new Legacies Project instructional modules — she’s in nearly every one of them.

I was excited to have Shirley on our board and I feel a deep loss not just for what she might have contributed to our organization but for someone I considered a friend.

Shirley wasn’t just good trouble; she was good people. And while I’ll miss her, I’m glad to know her oral history is preserved in our archives. I learned a lot from Shirley and I’ll always be grateful for the things she taught me.

Rest in peace, my friend.

03/13/2025

03/06/2025

http://legaciesproject.create-social-card.top/glgesd5

“May you live in interesting times.” It’s an ironical saying, since interesting times are usually chaotic and fraught with anxiety. A quick scan of the headlines (and of my social media feeds) suggests that we’re absolutely living in “interesting times.” There’s a lot of arguing. Some people despairing while others gloat. And a not insignificant amount of my friends feeds saying they’re embarrassed by their country right now.

And this is why I’m grateful that the Legacies Project has taught me to take the long view on current events.

First: I hold my personal views pretty close to the vest, because any organization that gathers oral history can’t pass judgement on the views of its interview subjects. Whether we’re recording protestors or counter-protestors, ensuring that everyone is comfortable enough to accurately recount their experience of an event is what matters. Spouting off about my personal beliefs might feel good in the moment, but I might also cut the number of people willing to share their life stories or make some do it in a self-censoring way; which is important since even someone recounting a life story that betrays cringeworthy misogyny or racism (and, believe me, it’s happened) conveys valuable information about the time. We have a credo that everybody has a story, and that every story matters, so we can’t betray judgment. Be professional. Stay neutral and gather the data.* Our commitment to future historians is to gather good history today.

Second: History has a way of sorting out the typical political quibbles from events that, over time, everyone comes to agree were truly universally, fundamentally awful. And we should learn from those.

Case in point: When the United States government forcibly relocated (mostly) American citizens into Japanese internment camps.

The longstanding Legacies Project installation at the Communication, Media, and Public Policy (CMPP) Magnet at Skyline High School has been lucky enough to have an ongoing relationship with the Japanese American community in Ann Arbor. And our original “in” was the irrepressible May Watanabe.

May left an indelible impression on her student team, that entire class, their teacher at the time, Pat Jenkins, and on Jay and me, too. She gave everyone an insight into how something that seems so obviously wrong can be sold to a public that’s scared enough to go along with anything. She conveyed the strength of her family, especially of her father, in seeing each other through the ordeal. (The photo links to May's story; I also included a link to David Yamamoto's story of internment in the first comment.)

There are great lessons in the capstone video that May’s Legacies Project team produced: We can get through anything. Don’t isolate! Building community is most important in tough times. And, yes, there are red lines that should never be crossed.

So in these interesting times, give people (especially people you love) some grace in disagreements. But if the government starts herding American citizens into militarized internment camps… let’s learn from history that there is such a thing as an unvarnished wrong, and protest like hell.

- Jimmy

* I should note that we make sure counselors at schools and camps know when a Legacies Project installation is happening, and make them aware that students or seniors who are triggered by content from the interview sessions may need support.