Monthly Archives: July 2020

As I yearned to find my voice and a different path in my life, I was constantly influenced by the family and community around me. When I found my own voice, I  paid a price.  When I did not find my voice, others paid a worse price.   Today I wonder what makes that counter culturalContinue reading “The Ladder”

This is my mother around 1948-1950 Stamped by Voices Artists of all kinds have used self-examination for a long time to express how they became who they are and to challenge those who participate in their art.  James Baldwin used his self-examination to better understand why America could not come to terms with the raceContinue reading “Stamped by Voices”

My great, great grandfather Johnston signed Mississippi’s Declaration to Secede the Union. In January 1861, Stephen Darden Johnston represented DeSoto County as a delegate to the Mississippi Secession Convention. He lived no more than 50 miles from where I now reside. I was always told that my mother’s father, grew up on a plantation inContinue reading ““Telling the truth about the past helps cause justice in the present. Achieving justice in the present helps us tell the truth about the past.” James Loewen”

Walt Whitman used the phrase “after times” to describe America after the Civil War.  Eddie Glaude, Jr. , professor of African American studies at Princeton, defines the phrase as what has come before and what is beginning to appear,  and compares it to James Baldwin’s deep anguish and disappointment after the Civil Rights movement.  AfterContinue reading “After Times”

34 mins ago This has been the summer of pandemic and protest. Our fairly small college town nestled in the land of Mississippi Burning is a microcosm of our country.   Racial inequality is once again so vivid and so stark it cannot be ignored. After 34 years in public education I never lost myContinue reading “A summer of pandemic and protest”