The essential nature of oral historical inquiry "naturally" and "relentlessly" brings an oral historian to theory. In this essay, the author argues for the relevance of theory in oral historical research that explores generational transformations in the relational experiences of youth attending desegregated schools in the latter part of the twentieth century. Oral historians use the past to shape the present, and in turn use encounters performed in the present to bring to light the past. The author grounds her essay in the following two assumptions: (1) theory lurks in any intellectual inquiry--acknowledged, its influence can be argued; and (2) the historian lurks in any historical inquiry--acknowledged, intellectual authority can be redistributed. She intends to legitimate the role of theory in the production of historical accounts that examine students' evolving perceptions of one another, and to consider an alternate to the hereto prevalent paradigm that has shaped narratives in histories of education in the United States. She argues that theoretical frameworks provide needed discursive templates to talk about the challenges presented by oral historical work that seeks to examine how diverse students adapt to multiple cultural contexts and affiliations within single institutions over time. She explicitly traces the application of intersectionality, using examples from her own oral history research on diverse students' experiences in a Baltimore County Maryland high school between 1950 and 2000. (Contains 68 footnotes.)