What does “Facing South” mean?
This is the story of a my Civil Rights journey to the Deep South which will take me from Memphis, Tennessee through to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and finally to Washington DC. It will document the stories, hopes and dreams, of challenge and change, of transformation and struggle. It is not just an American story, it is a human story. This story that started many centuries ago, continues today. I am here to face it.
If there is anything that I take away from these brief days in Mississippi and Alabama it is the need to speak the truth more openly. Ida B Wells stated: “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them,” and from my conversations with Charlene, the head of the Smith…
There were more Baptists churches in the Mississippi Delta than I had ever seen before. Like the joke Jews make about shuls, I was wondering if there was the Baptist church that you didn’t go to; that’s how many there were. And because it was Sunday morning, many of them were packed. We met the…
Between 1810-1860 a quarter million slaves were brought into Mississippi. For a brief, hopeful moment after the Civil War, the state began to reflect considerable black political power. There were examples of black politicians at a local and state level and there was even a farming community of former slaves who called their new community…
I will be spending a week as part of the Civil Rights Seminar, of the Gilder Lehrman Institute which is taking place at Rhodes College and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. For a week, 35 History teachers have gathered together to learn from academic experts, museum educators as well as social justice activists. It…
