UCO Students Digitize Tapes to Carry on Legacy of ‘Let the People Speak’ Program

“For about 20 years, from the late 1970s to the 1990s, Trella Laughlin hosted a television program “Let the People Speak” that ran on Austin Public Television. She traveled widely to interview people about critical social and human rights issues of that era. She covered the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1978-1979 when the Sandinistas overthrew a repressive dictatorship. She did programs from Cuba, Palestine and the Gaza strip. She interviewed people marginalized or discriminated against because of their race, national origin, and sexual orientation, and frequently highlighted the work of artists and musicians.

These programs were done before the age of the internet, and what remains is primarily eight-track tapes. Now, thanks to researchers at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, those tapes will be digitized providing a historical record of Laughlin’s work to empower people and advocate for a more just society.”