Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Have you ever thought of a time where you wish you could sit on a mobile bus and just talk your thoughts out with your significant other, friend, or family member? Well, if you have, the opportunity for you has came true.

The Alabama Public Radio has invited the Story Corps’ Mobile tour to Selma and they rolled right into town last week, looking for everyday citizens who would like to have a 40-minute on- air conversation with their family member, friend, or significant other about whatever topic they would like to discuss, no matter the structure or the order, from now until Feb.7.

The mobile tour will be available during the week, every day except for Tuesdays and Thursdays and open weekends including holidays from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The conversation will be monitored and ran by a Story Corps’ operator and each conversation had on the Story Corps’ mobile tour bus will be archived on their website and can be heard and shared with The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the National Public Radio. Since, Story Corps’ also has partnerships with NPR, it could also go on local or national radio broadcast if those recorded, approves of it.

However, Story Corps’ is a national nonprofit catered to connecting people all across the country through a shared passion or connection for storytelling. In fact, it is an oral history organization that documents stories of the United States, telling the stories that are important to people while telling the “first-hand accounts” of what life is like in America, according to Ian Murakami, who is the site manager for the Story Corps’ tour.

“Over the last 22 years, we have archived over 360,000 conversations with almost 700,000 people all over the country. So, we are proud to say we are the world’s largest collection of human voices ever gathered,” said Murakami.

The Story Corps’ mobile bus is featuring its latest and newest initiative called “Brightness in Black” in Selma and in other cities as well across the state that is geared towards stories within the Black community, addressing issues that may be underrepresented or maybe misrepresented in mainstream media while simultaneously providing depth and complexity to how the black narrative has been told.

“Rather than focusing on deficit or loss or trauma including all these different social issues, through this initiative we can also focus on community resiliency, connection, family, love, self-actualization, development, is my definition of adding depth,” Murakami said. “The way I like to put it is, its people being able to tell their own story on their own terms.”

However, Marakami said “Brightness in Black” is an initiative that is more targeted and focused on specific themes, ideas and concepts and said that if participants don’t have a subject or an idea of what they want to discuss, that they have sheets available to help out.

“So like on the sheet here, we have like questions about family, love, identity and community where there can be deeper and complex stories, told on your own terms, by people maybe that’s in your own community or people that you may know.”

Marakami said the initiative is also black led and funded by many urban organizations including the lead support of the Michael Jordan family and the Jordan Brand, Black Community Commitment and said earlier last year, the partnership took effect in August.

Aligned with the Jordan Brand’s BCC, these narratives will further shape the nuance, complexity, and beauty of Black life in America, according to Black Enterprise Wealth For Life Website.

Even, Story Corps CEO Sandra Clark spoke to the media outlet about the partnership with the Jordan Brand and how she feels regarding it for years to come.

“The real opportunity here is that the Jordan Brand has this incredible platform and a cross generational reach that will help expand [Story Corps],” she adds. “These stories will be distributed in ways we have not done before, as we plan to work with black publishers across the country. Having a multi-platform distribution is important for the Black community to be able to experience, share and see these stories, but also for those outside the community to see these stories and understand a depth of experience that they perhaps may not understand.”

For those in Selma interested in doing their interpersonal recording, in-person or virtual with the Story Corps’ nonprofit that’s been around since 2003 and celebrating their 20th anniversary storytelling, can email the site manager directly at imurakami@storycorps.org or contact the direct line for Story Corps at 646-504-4350.

Interested participants can also register online if they would like to at Storycorps.org, where they can scroll down to the bottom of the webpage, click on mobile tour, the Selma location and find just how to sign up from there.