Julieanna Richardson: I learn for the first time that this song is written by a Black songwriting team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake in the 1921 production of "Shuffle Along" on Broadway. I mean, it was, like, "Whoa. And I'm listening to the music. (SINGS) "I'm just wild about Harry, Harry's wild about me." And it was, like-- it opened the appetite. And I'm reading, and I'm studying, and I'm listening, and I'm hearing. I'm hearing these things that I had no knowledge of, for the first time.
The spark was lit, but didn't catch fire. Her father had wanted her to be a lawyer. After Harvard Law School, she had a successful career as a corporate lawyer and cable entrepreneur. But she was restless.
Julieanna Richardson: I was in my mid-40s. I didn't have children. You get to a point in your life when you start asking, you know, what is gonna be your leave behind. What is gonna be your legacy? And I wanted to do good in my life.
As she mulled her future, she went to a legal conference in Memphis and heard the Reverend Billy Kyles, who was on the hotel balcony with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he was assassinated. Richardson realized there were lots of important stories like his.
Julieanna Richardson: At that moment the name, "HistoryMakers," came to me. And I came back and I was like, "I know what I'm gonna do. It's called the HistoryMakers, and it's gonna be an archive of Black people."
Bill Whitaker: In the beginning did you have a lot of-- encouragement--
Julieanna Richardson: Well, they-- they-- my friends did an intervention. They literally did an in-- intervention.
With no money, no formal training in oral history or professional archiving, she launched the HistoryMakers in 1999. At first, it wasn't easy to get people to share their intimate stories with a stranger. But she convinced a Tuskegee Airman, Col. Bill Thompson.
Col. Bill Thompson in HistoryMakers interview: We were flying now with White guys.
Julieanna Richardson: He says-- "Have you heard of the Golden Thirteen?" And I said, "No, Col. Thompson, I've never heard of the Golden Thirteen." And he said, "Well, they were the Navy's version of the Tuskegee Airmen." And he said, "Four are left living in this country, and one lives upstairs. And he wants to talk to you also." And it was just at that point that I-- you know, I knew we were at a point of discovering.
Julieanna Richardson: Every interview costs us $6,000 to process.
When she realized the archive needed more athletes, she persuaded the NFL to donate hundreds of hours of its own interviews with Black players. Last year, she landed Hall of Fame wide receiver Jerry Rice, who couldn't believe he got the call.