Category: lillian e smith
Lillian E. Smith Reading Group: Part II
Last post, I wrote about the LES Reading Group that we are conducting this July. When I read Smith, her voices echoes through the years, speaking to this moment both nationally and internationally. I often wonder, and I hope this will be part of the reading group conversation, how she would react to this moment. How she would engage with social media. How she … Read More Lillian E. Smith Reading Group: Part II
Lillian E. Smith Reading Group: Part I
The more I read Lillian Smith, the more her voice resonates with the current moment. I do searches through the journal she edited with her life-long partner Paula Snelling, and each issues contains articles that, while published in the 1930s or 1940s, As well, the more I speak with people about Smith, I realize that people do not know her, at least they do … Read More Lillian E. Smith Reading Group: Part I
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Divide and Conquer: Part I
I’ve always known that rhetoric, speech, and writing serve as weapons to sever communities or as tools to bring them together. Because of this, I know that individuals in power will use that weapon to keep individuals below separate through demonizing one group and promising hopes to the other. This has occurred throughout history, and in regard to race in America, it has occurred … Read More Divide and Conquer: Part I
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Gone With the Wind and the Mythologized South
Last week, John Ridley, Academy Award winner for adapted screenplay for 12 Years a Slave, spurred on calls fro HBO Max to remove David O Selznick’s film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind from its streaming service. Ridley points out that the film, “as part of the narrative of the ‘Lost Cause,’ romanticizes the Confederacy in a way that continues to give … Read More Gone With the Wind and the Mythologized South
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Even Its Children Know . . .
Over the past few weeks, we have seen protests throughout the nation and across the world speaking out out against police brutality and systemic racism and calling upon those in power and those not in power to listen and know that Black lives matter. One of these protests occurred in our county, a mostly Wonder Bread white county. At the protest, about 200 or … Read More Even Its Children Know . . .
+ cynical, hosea easton, lillian e smith, paula snelling, propaganda, sho baraka, white supremacy, william apess
The Narcissism of White Supremacy
Every time I listen to Propaganda and Sho Baraka’s “Cynical,” new lines stick out to me. This time, the first few lines of Sho Baraka’s verse jumped out, mainly because of the ways they relate to a lot of my recent posts about the effects of racism on children, especially white children who imbibe racist ideas and white supremacy then regurgitate it, generation after … Read More The Narcissism of White Supremacy
Lillian E. Smith Center LibGuide
One of the things I enjoy doing is creating pedagogical materials for educators, students, and the general public. When I worked at the Ernest J. Gaines Center, I collaborated on the center’s LibGuide (library guide). In my position as the director of the Lillian E. Smith Center, I taken on a similar project constructing a LibGuide for Smith and some of her works. Today, … Read More Lillian E. Smith Center LibGuide
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We Must Stop the Roots from Ever Appearing
A couple of years ago, I took students to the EJI Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. When we first entered the museum, a student saw the flag that hung from the headquarters of the NAACP in New York throughout the 1920s and the 1930s. The flag, which flew outside the headquarters, drew attention to racial violence … Read More We Must Stop the Roots from Ever Appearing
Art and the Collaborative Circuit
In my last post, I wrote about Lillian E. Smith’s thoughts on art and artists in her speech “Ten Years from Today.” For this post, I want to continue that discussion and look at some of Smith’s other comments on art, artists, and critics. Speaking with Joan Titus shortly before her death in September 1966, Smith talks about how we experience art and the … Read More Art and the Collaborative Circuit
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Art and the Creation of New Beliefs and New Images
On June 5, 1951, Lillian E. Smith delivered the commencement address at Kentucky State College. Entitled “Ten Years from Today,” Smith’s speech contained hope and optimism for the future, stating that by 1961, Jim Crow will have faded away. This, of course, did not occur; however, she provided the audience with tools to help to dismantle white supremacy and segregation. One of the tools … Read More Art and the Creation of New Beliefs and New Images
“Dope with Lime” the Lillian E. Smith Center’s Podcast
One of the main initiatives I wanted to do when I started at the Lillian E. Smith Center was a podcast highlighting various topics related to Smith. These included her life, her work, her current impact, her legacy, and the ways that the center, scholars, artist residents, and more continue to carry on her legacy. As such, I debuted “Dope with Lime.” Today, I … Read More “Dope with Lime” the Lillian E. Smith Center’s Podcast
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Laurel Falls Camp at 100
Note: This article originally appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of “A View from the Mountain,” the Lillian E. Smith Center’s newsletter. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Laurel Falls Camp. Lillian Smith’s father, Calvin, opened the camp in 1920, and it was the first private camp for girls in the state of Georgia. “Miss Lil,” as the campers called her, took over … Read More Laurel Falls Camp at 100
