Logan Jaffe

The attempt to ban, erase etc.. marginalized people's histories demands responses at the grassroots level. Regular people can be cultural stewards, can be archivists, can be storytellers, can be preservers of oral history. And these are all fun things to do!

Since @mckenziefunk.com & I published yesterday, we've already received new reports of more arrests like this. Some families just find the car left in the road, with no sign of their loved one

Please reach out if you have more info on immigration arrests

Signals: nicolefoy.27 or 212-379-5757 (Mac)

You’ve seen these videos for months on social media. @nicolefoy.bsky.social and @mckenziefunk.com pieced together nearly 50 recorded incidents of ICE breaking people’s car windows. They found disturbing trends that disparate videos can’t convey alone — happening in neighborhoods across the country.

screenshot of a short bio on this man

1/ “I would like the whole world to know that my son is not a criminal. He’s not a terrorist.”

That’s what the mother of Yolfran Alejandro Escobar Falcón told us. Yolfran is one of the 230+ Venezuelan men who the Trump admin. imprisoned in El Salvador.

with @texastribune.org @cazadoresdefakenews.info and Alianza Rebelde Investiga

You may have seen reports about the release of Venezuelans the Trump administration sent to a Salvadoran prison and called "the worst of the worst."
But when we set out to learn more about them, that's not what we found. 🧵

The immensity of this reporting cannot be overstated.

@propublica.org made an archive of reported, fact-checked info on each of the individuals sent to prison in El Salvador.

Trump admin knew that only *six* had been convicted of violent offenses.

‘We cannot give up.’ Chicago mothers push for accountability from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office • The TRiiBE It’s been one year since parents allege that Cook County neglected to directly inform a mom that her son was in the morgue. Officials are still under fire for the lapse.

Chicago mothers are looking for a "compassionate system" of death notification and identification from the county medical examiner's office. Their sons were both unclaimed for weeks in the county morgue.

thetriibe.com/2025/07/we-c...

This survey from Chicago Public Library unexpectedly got me emotional.

I love my local branch so much, and helping shape CPL’s strategic plan seems important.

Chicagoans, if you haven’t yet:
gensler.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

::: Whispers :::
Ken Burns’ work is consensus history, and consensus history still depends on the mythology of American exceptionalism

The value of local archives - records of people living in that place over time - for understanding climate disasters.

“oral histories show Kerr County residents have warned one another, as well as newcomers and out-of-towners, about flooding for a long time.”

#Floods
#LocalHistory
#Archives

So ... I was able to find and speak with a descendant of Thornton Secor, whose oral history about Texas floods I wrote about. Turns out his daughter still owns and operates the same lodge along the Guadalupe River. It flooded July 4.

Hi Lia!! Thank you!

Oral histories—both the recording and the proper care for them—are so important. And having non-obsolete and stable platforms to make these recordings accessible is equally vital.

@loganjaffe.bsky.social with an example of how oral histories demonstrate ways of knowing beyond written records. 🧵

Thanks for reading/sharing it

Thank you. Great points here. Another commenter posted about how data expertise is often so much more valued over local knowledge bc it’s maybe easier to convince people to change/do things. But the local knowledge is also super valuable!

This is my first time flying since watching season 2 of The Rehearsal and I feel like all these pilots are extra communicating in public now 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes! It was a sundown town presentation and definitely touched on 1909. With the sangamon county historical society. Nice!

Thanks for reading! Are you in southern Illinois? I’ve done some reporting in the area and I know it’s also seen some really bad floods …

Texas Officials Say They Didn’t See the Flood Coming. Oral Histories Show Residents Have Long Warned of Risks. After a tragedy, records from local archives can help us understand how a community understands itself. Here’s some of what we learned following the devastating July 4 flooding in Texas.

Amazing — thank you for reading the original version! That was before I was able to connect with the daughter who owns the lodge now. Updated here: www.propublica.org/article/texa...

Really great 🧵on the importance of oral histories and communal memory. In a time when many policymakers only listen when there is data (read quant/comp) community expertise is so important to truly understanding change/impact and needs.

So true. Thanks for sharing

Texas Officials Say They Didn’t See the Flood Coming. Oral Histories Show Residents Have Long Warned of Risks. After a tragedy, records from local archives can help us understand how a community understands itself. Here’s some of what we learned following the devastating July 4 flooding in Texas.

“This is our family history, our family legacy,” Secor Lipscomb told me. “Of course we’re going to rebuild.”

More in the story: www.propublica.org/article/texa...

This is a great thread and the themes here apply to so many different problems that people think can't come back, but do

Thanks for sharing -- exactly.

The lodge, she said, has given so many other families their own memories, too. They already have word from families that survived the flood that they’ll come back whenever the camp is rebuilt. Even for July 4.

But much of the lodge is coming down. By the time I reached out to her to ask her about her father’s oral history, six cabins and the main camp office were already demolished. Nearly 40 volunteers showed up to help. The generosity among the devastation had her in tears.

Mandi Secor-Lipscomb is the fourth-generation owner of Waltonia on the River, which is more than 100 years old. She said the lodge was sold out, full of people on July 4. Everyone was able to escape the floods by running up a steep hill and taking shelter in a barn.

So ... I was able to find and speak with a descendant of Thornton Secor, whose oral history about Texas floods I wrote about. Turns out his daughter still owns and operates the same lodge along the Guadalupe River. It flooded July 4.