Down the Bay Student Podcast

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  Episode 1 - Introduction

  Kiara Smith, Ashley McPhillips, Ayana Thompson, McKenzie Blake, Areshio Walker, and Erik Ware

  This episode is the introduction to this podcast series. In it, students introduce the listener to Down the Bay as they have come to know and understand it, and discuss some of the oral history interview clips that helped them to get an overall sense of the community's history.

  What Happened Down the Bay? is a podcast created by University of South Alabama students in summer 2025, through the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program (JOIP) funded by the David Mathews Center for Public Life. Down the Bay is a historic Black neighborhood south of downtown Mobile, Alabama, and this podcast explores the history of Down the Bay as community members have related it through oral history interviews. In preparation for the internship, students participated in an oral history seminar with Drs. Ryan Morini and David Messenger, working with interviews from the Down the Bay Oral History Project collection at the McCall Library before meeting with elders from the community and recording new interviews for the collection. The podcast combines clips from the archived interviews with students’ reflections on how their own home communities and experiences relate to those that people describe from Down the Bay.

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  Episode 2 - Childhood

  Ayana Thompson, Kiara Smith, and Erik Ware

  This second episode in the series explores the ways that oral history narrators described their childhood experiences growing up Down the Bay. Ayana, Kiara, and Erik reflect on similarities and differences between their own childhoods in their hometowns and the stories that they learned about through the interviews.

  What Happened Down the Bay? is a podcast created by University of South Alabama students in summer 2025, through the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program (JOIP) funded by the David Mathews Center for Public Life. Down the Bay is a historic Black neighborhood south of downtown Mobile, Alabama, and this podcast explores the history of Down the Bay as community members have related it through oral history interviews. In preparation for the internship, students participated in an oral history seminar with Drs. Ryan Morini and David Messenger, working with interviews from the Down the Bay Oral History Project collection at the McCall Library before meeting with elders from the community and recording new interviews for the collection. The podcast combines clips from the archived interviews with students’ reflections on how their own home communities and experiences relate to those that people describe from Down the Bay.

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  Episode 3 - Community

  Erik Ware, Ayana Thompson, Ashley McPhillips, and Areshio Walker

  This third episode in the series focuses on the ways that oral history narrators described the sense of community Down the Bay, and the institutions and practices that generated and maintained that sense of community. The students engage with these stories by sharing some of their own reflections about their own communities.

  What Happened Down the Bay? is a podcast created by University of South Alabama students in summer 2025, through the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program (JOIP) funded by the David Mathews Center for Public Life. Down the Bay is a historic Black neighborhood south of downtown Mobile, Alabama, and this podcast explores the history of Down the Bay as community members have related it through oral history interviews. In preparation for the internship, students participated in an oral history seminar with Drs. Ryan Morini and David Messenger, working with interviews from the Down the Bay Oral History Project collection at the McCall Library before meeting with elders from the community and recording new interviews for the collection. The podcast combines clips from the archived interviews with students’ reflections on how their own home communities and experiences relate to those that people describe from Down the Bay.

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  Episode 4 - Businesses

  McKenzie Blake, Areshio Walker, and Erik Ware

  This fourth episode in the series focuses on the businesses and other institutions described in the interviews for the Down the Bay Oral History Project. The student hosts reflect on the connections they see between these histories and their own lives and communities.

  What Happened Down the Bay? is a podcast created by University of South Alabama students in summer 2025, through the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program (JOIP) funded by the David Mathews Center for Public Life. Down the Bay is a historic Black neighborhood south of downtown Mobile, Alabama, and this podcast explores the history of Down the Bay as community members have related it through oral history interviews. In preparation for the internship, students participated in an oral history seminar with Drs. Ryan Morini and David Messenger, working with interviews from the Down the Bay Oral History Project collection at the McCall Library before meeting with elders from the community and recording new interviews for the collection. The podcast combines clips from the archived interviews with students’ reflections on how their own home communities and experiences relate to those that people describe from Down the Bay.

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  Episode 5 - Urban Renewal

  Ashley McPhillips, Areshio Walker, and Erik Ware

  This fifth episode of the series focuses on urban renewal, and the effects on the community that oral history narrators remembered from Mobile's urban renewal program and the construction of Interstate 10.

  What Happened Down the Bay? is a podcast created by University of South Alabama students in summer 2025, through the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program (JOIP) funded by the David Mathews Center for Public Life. Down the Bay is a historic Black neighborhood south of downtown Mobile, Alabama, and this podcast explores the history of Down the Bay as community members have related it through oral history interviews. In preparation for the internship, students participated in an oral history seminar with Drs. Ryan Morini and David Messenger, working with interviews from the Down the Bay Oral History Project collection at the McCall Library before meeting with elders from the community and recording new interviews for the collection. The podcast combines clips from the archived interviews with students’ reflections on how their own home communities and experiences relate to those that people describe from Down the Bay.

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  Episode 6 - Conclusion

  Areshio Walker, Yvonne Matthews, Erik Ware, McKenzie Blake, Ayana Thompson, Kiara Smith, and Ashley McPhillips

  In this sixth and concluding episode of the podcast, the students reflect on some of the things that they learned from the archived interviews, the interviews that they conducted, and from putting together this podcast series. Community member Yvonne Reed Matthews joins them and shares in the reflective process with the team. We hope you enjoyed this podcast.

  What Happened Down the Bay? is a podcast created by University of South Alabama students in summer 2025, through the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program (JOIP) funded by the David Mathews Center for Public Life. Down the Bay is a historic Black neighborhood south of downtown Mobile, Alabama, and this podcast explores the history of Down the Bay as community members have related it through oral history interviews. In preparation for the internship, students participated in an oral history seminar with Drs. Ryan Morini and David Messenger, working with interviews from the Down the Bay Oral History Project collection at the McCall Library before meeting with elders from the community and recording new interviews for the collection. The podcast combines clips from the archived interviews with students’ reflections on how their own home communities and experiences relate to those that people describe from Down the Bay.