Scope and arrangement
The collection consists of seventy-eight audio recordings reflecting Nelson's career as a journalist from 1979 to 1990. The collection's original format is cassette, with many items containing two or more parts. Square brackets indicate partial information or unclear spelling.
The Jill Nelson audio collection is arranged in three series:
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The series contains interviews arranged alphabetically by the interview subject's last name. Multiple interviews often appear on one recording, and have been described separately. Nelson conducted the interviews for articles that she wrote for the Washington Post Magazine and Essence magazine. Her interviewees include notable figures such as actor Avery Brooks, political activist Sekou Odinga, musician Diana Ross, and educator and activist Jitu Weusi. Other interviews cover the breadth of her reporting topics, including youth, mental health, and local businesses, police brutality and the U.S. justice system, the Black Liberation Army, and the 1979 Grenadian revolution and the subsequent U.S. invasion of 1983.
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The series contains recordings of events that Nelson attended. The recordings are arranged chronologically. These include a campaign event for Reverend Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential primary and a broadcast of a debate; Nelson's participation in a panel at a conference of the National Association of Black Journalists in 1986, where she speaks about the responsibility of Black journalists to challenge racist media narratives; an opening statement delivered by lawyer Alton H. Maddox, Jr. during a court trial; and lectures by clinical psychologist Dr. Na'im Akbar.
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The series contains seven recordings collected by Nelson. The recordings are arranged chronologically. They include music, phone conversations pertaining to a tenants' struggle to control four mismanaged buildings, and a radio interview with Marion Barry. Nelson appears in just one recording, a radio advertisement for C. Vernon Mason's 1985 campaign for Manhattan district attorney.