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Safe Space, An Error

We sat around the table at Caritas Village. The time was the early 2010s, the place Memphis. We were in the back room behind the grey folding partition conducting our Memphis School for Servant Leadership Board meeting. We were probably eating chips or brownies or other snacks Board members brought for meetings. As the Board chair reviewed the Parker...

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Veterans Day

We went to our Memphis grandson’s Grandparent’s Day. As part of the program, they sang each of the songs of the branches of the military. The emcee (yes, the program had an emcee) asked us as members of the audience to stand up when we had a relative in that branch of the service. I could have stood for each branch except for the Coast...

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Rain in NOLA

I zip my pink raincoat up to my chin. Flip on the hood and head out. Rain falls. So common to New Orleans, but missing in action for weeks then months. We’ve had beautiful fall weather, but we glanced at the sky, wary of the dry clouds. At my feet, rain dimples puddles. The toes of my tennis shoes disappear in the runoff. I turn left onto...

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Lynching On the Courthouse Lawn

It’s a hard topic to write about, lynching. This stream of violence running through the middle of American history like the great Mississippi flowing down the center of our county is hard to face. But Sherrilyn A. Ifill uses an apt phrase in the introduction to her book, On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st...

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Let the Glider Glide

In the last 10 days, I’ve joined a new Bible study and registered for an intense Coming to the Table workshop. I’ve gained groundbreaking revelations in the continuing attempt to make IN THE NAME OF MISSISSIPPI publishable. In two of those days, I wrote an article for the Mississippi Episcopal Diocese newsletter and a funny, poignant...

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The Sentences that Create Us

Reading The Sentences that Create Us raises a question: how do we handle the adjectives that are appended to descriptions of writers? “Southern” writer. “African American” writer. The adjectives often encapsulate the heart of the writing. But they can also carry an implied—and often condescending—”only” (She is...

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THE MOVEMENT MADE US: A Telling

As I read THE MOVEMENT MADE US, I reflected on what I learned about generational racialized trauma in books such as My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem. Menakem’s book is wonderful, full of wisdom and advice. But what we learn from the father/son telling in THE MOVEMENT MADE US is on a different level. David Dennis Jr., in collaboration...

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