The "Lift Every Voice" project was aimed to engage local teens with older local members of the African American community who could provide memories and recollections of race relations and racial injustice in Salisbury and Delmarva. Along with these interviews, participating teens would meet in a community poetry workshop to create a community poem from the content of their interviews.

The "Lift Every Voice" project in Salisbury, MD, was funded by Library of America, partnered with Wicomico Public Libraries, the Fenix Youth Project, the Salisbury Lynching Memorial Task Force, and the Edward H. Nabb Research Center to allow Salisbury Students to participate in this national project on African American Culture. 

"Lift Every Voice" was a project aimed to celebrate the 250-year tradition of African American poetry by highlighting the richness and imagination of African American poetry and its place in American poetry. This project oversaw numerous events in New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Kansas City, while also moderating conversations in public libraries around the country. Kevin Young, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, edited the anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song for Library of America in association with the project. 

https://www.africanamericanpoetry.org/

The Nabb Center holds some of the recorded Zoom calls between the students and the community contacts during their interviews between October and December 2020. The focus of these calls was to connect Salisbury teenagers to local members of the Delmarva African American community who could share their experiences with racial tension, injustice, and discrimination in Delmarva's past. Three people were interviewed: Eddie Harmon, Julia Huey, and Mary Ashanti. Each recall their upbringing in the 1950s,1960s, and 1970s and the nature of their experiences surrounding race, speaking of their experiences (or lack of experiences) with discrimination and racism. They speak about their childhoods as well as their growth into adulthood and the experiences within, whether it was getting a job or getting involved with the NAACP. Students were then to participate in a poetry workshop to create a community poem of these experiences to contribute to the national collection of African American poetry that this project celebrates.