While many of the most valuable tapes were in oral history archives, some were found in boxes in basements and under beds, often damaged by water or age. To repair tapes, Mr. King baked many of them in ovens. It's 170 degrees for three hours. It stabilizes the oxides. Oral history has its dangers, of course.
People tend to exaggerate their stories and inflate their own roles.
The larger context can be lost in the focus on individual stories. One person's memory may contradict that of another. To counteract those problems, Mr. King, a British-born resident of Atlanta who has produced documentaries for television and radio, made liberal use of academic consultants and focus groups of civil rights veterans in the five capital cities. But no, they were not that born again. But I think we would be doing a disservice if all we do is press people's buttons of' create some hand-wringing sense of guilt out of all this.