1 Funding for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program NEA Jazz Master interview was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. ABBEY LINCOLN NEA Jazz M aster (2003) INTERVIEWEE: ABBEY LINCLON (AUGUST 6, 1930 – AUGUST 14, 2010) INTERVIEWER: SALLY PLAXSON DATE: DECEMBER 17-18, 1996 REPOSITORY: ARCHIVES CENTER, NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION DESCRIPTION: TRANSCRIPT, 68 PAGES SALLY PLAXSON: So, Abbey Lincoln, it's great to have yet another chance to talk with you about your life. ABBEY LINCOLN: You, too, Sally. SALLY PLAXSON: Because it's always -- even though it's our third interview, I always learn so much more when we talk. I'm always newly inspired. ABBEY LINCOLN: Thank you. SALLY PLAXSON: I thought we could start right from the beginning and just work our way through which is not terribly original, but I think it's the way we should do it. Let's start with Chicago, but I'd like to even look at something that we haven't talked about much before. Some of the prehistory of your family and background of your parents, and you were born in Chicago, but how far back can you trace the family history? ABBEY LINCOLN: Mama was the storyteller at home and she told us about our grandparents and our great-grandparents and she told us about our fathers' grandparents, and in the autobiography that I'm writing, she wrote the first part of the book, 38 pages, For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or
[email protected] 2 and she told everything about -- I mean, she told about the life that we lived before I was born.