Agents of Change: Portraits of Activism in the History of Duke Health is an oral history project documenting the work of activists and "change agents" throughout Duke Health’s history. This year-long project team was organized as part of the Bass Connections program and one of four teams connected to the Duke Centennial. Our team was led by Dr. Jeff Baker, Director of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and History and Rebecca Williams, Archives Librarian. Jonathan Pyka, Sara Spicer, and Lucy Zheng were the graduate team members. Gemma Holland, Ava Meigs, Danielle Okotcha, Fiorella Orozco, Caroline Overton, and Anthony Zhao were the undergraduate team members.
As Duke celebrates its centennial and engages in a university-wide project to illuminate its past and set goals for the future, this project sought to consider what voices are being silenced and what stories are being left out. Institutional histories all too often limit their task to summarizing the accomplishments of past leaders and department chairs. Medicine, in particular, has a long history of celebrating "giants who roamed the halls"—larger-than-life physicians and scientists exemplifying nearly superhuman skills as clinicians, teachers, and researchers. Less remembered are those figures whose voices challenged the status quo—individuals who (quietly or loudly) advocated on behalf of the excluded and marginalized. Duke Health has a rich legacy of such insider/outsider agents of change, many of whom came from underrepresented minority backgrounds. These stories, while often left out of “official” institutional histories, are the ones that need to be collected, preserved, and made accessible.
During the 2023 fall semester, our team explored existing scholarship on the history of Duke Health and identified a variety of potential “change agents” from Duke Health, the Schools of Medicine, and Nursing during the second half of the twentieth century. We sought to highlight figures representing a variety of backgrounds, identities, and types of activism, from radicals directly engaged in political and organizational work to reformers working within the constraints of the health system. We also collaborated with a local oral historian, Josephine McRobbie, who provided in-depth training in oral history best practices, including consent, interviewing, ethics, and documentation.
After identifying candidates, we worked hard to schedule interviews with the change agents or with the friends and family of deceased individuals. Not every person we approached agreed to be interviewed, and we had to pivot when a few individuals dropped out due to a variety of circumstances.
During the 2024 spring semester, our team completed 20 interviews that highlight 18 activists. The six undergraduate members of our project team conducted all the interviews. They worked in pairs with guidance from our graduate and professional student team leaders.
The Agents of Change project team is excited to announce that our project website is available to view here: https://exhibits.mclibrary.duke.edu/agents-of-change/home. A visitor to the website will find profiles of Duke Health activists organized around the themes of racial justice, community health, educational equality, reproductive justice, LGBTQIA+ and sexual health, and labor rights.
All the interviews were transcribed and will be preserved in the Duke University Medical Center Archives where they will be open for access to the Duke community and public. In addition to the final project website, our team also showcased the activists in a video gallery consciously modeled after the “Heritage Hall” display in the Duke School of Medicine.
We encourage you to browse these interviews and learn more about the history of Duke Health.