Arkansas Folklife Festival Oral History Bus

The Arkansas Folklife Festival Oral History Bus is a mobile recording studio, community archive, and storytelling space asking two simple but profound questions: Who is Arkansas culture? What is Arkansas culture?

A collaboration between the Arkansas Folklife Festival, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Letters to Tomorrow project, Arkansas Humanities and the Clinton Presidential Library’s For the People initiative, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and the Central Arkansas Library System Archives, the project creates a lasting record of Arkansas life during the America 250 commemoration.

Throughout the festival, visitors can step inside the bus to record oral histories with trained folklorists, write letters to future Arkansans through the Letters to Tomorrow station, contribute photographs and memories to a community story wall, and reflect on what they hope future generations will preserve.

Too often, history is recorded through institutions and major events. The Oral History Bus centers the voices of everyday Arkansans, recognizing that culture lives in kitchens, churches, barber shops, dance halls, fishing camps, family reunions, farms, front porches, and neighborhood gatherings. Selected recordings will become part of a permanent Arkansas People’s Archive, ensuring these voices remain accessible to researchers, students, and community members for generations to come.

Stop by, share a story, and help write Arkansas’s history. Because culture is not something we inherit alone. It is something we create together.