“Darling, phone call for you.” “I’m so tired. Can you take a message?” “It’s Martin. He wants to know if you got the card he sent last week.” “I’ll be right there. . . . Martin, it’s so good to hear your voice. How are Coretta and the kids? . . .” Every time I go up to the Lillian E. Smith Center, I think … Read More The Presence of the Past on Screamer Mountain
A few weeks ago, the Lillian E. Smith Center lost Bill Watts, an important member of our community. Here is a tribute I wrote about Bill. The Lillian E. Smith Center on Screamer Mountain is a spiritual space. It’s a patch of land with a history deeply connected with the Civil Rights Movement. It’s a space of community and bonding, a space where humanity … Read More A Tribute to Bill
+ displacement, george takei, James Hatsuaki Wakasa, japanese american internment, japanese incarceration, they called us enemy
“Memory,” as George Takei puts it in They Called Us Enemy, “is a wily keeper of the past.” It shifts and moves, changing over time. Memory, as well, is the keeper of the past and the means of immortality. It’s the act of remembering that connects us to those whom we have never personally met, not just with people that we tangibly interacted with … Read More Immortality and Memory
Lillian Smith’s One Hour (1959) is a complex novel that examines a myriad of societal and existential questions from the influence of racism and patriarchy on one’s psyche to the ways we remember and think about death. The novel centers around what Smith calls a “minor plot.” David Landrum, the Episcopal Priest at All Saints Church in the town, narrates the story, writing about the events, … Read More Memory Creates Life: Part I
+ civil rights, Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White, graphic memoir, lillian e smith, march, pauli murray
Recently, I’ve been thinking about different courses that I would want to teach in the future. In the last post, I discussed a course entitled “Literature of White Estrangement.” Today, I want to think about a course entitled “Civil Rights Memoirs.” I’ve been thinking about this course for a few weeks, and I started thinking about it because, after teaching John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate … Read More “Civil Rights Memoir” Syllabus
Interminable Rambling 