Featured Archives - Ellen Morris Prewitt

Granddaughter of the Instigator

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 16, 2025. Posted in Featured, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments on Granddaughter of the Instigator

We get many names during our lives, some given to us and some assumed. I didn’t ask for “granddaughter of the instigator,” but it’s true. Here’s the origin story: https://www.salvationsouth.com/granddaughter-of-the-instigator-vicksburg-massacre-ellen-morris-prewitt

The Unveiling

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 13, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on The Unveiling

Keeping the Murderous Grannies Straight

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 3, 2025. Posted in Featured, When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women, Writing. 6 Comments on Keeping the Murderous Grannies Straight

I’m deep in revision, y’all. My editor at Literary Wanderlust completed her developmental edits on When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women and sent me her comments. They were not a big deal, two main ones and an adjustment to a scene at the end. The one I’m most interested in involves keeping the murderous grannies...

The Heart of Danger

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 17, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, LOVE. 4 Comments on The Heart of Danger

My family heads into hurricanes. They pinpoint the spot of landing – why, it’s almost a hundred miles from our beach! – and pile into the car. Hurry, they say, we need to arrive before they close the bridge. The governor has declared a state of emergency. The authorities have warned 150,00 people to retreat inland, and we are going to the...

Origin of Black History Month

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on February 28, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments on Origin of Black History Month

Today, the last day of February, we’re going to give credit where credit is due. The origin of Black History Month. Q: Who started it? A: Carter Woodson. Woodson was a major American historian living and working during the first half of the 20th century. He founded the predecessor to the Journal of African American History, one of the...

Basquiat Our Patron Saint

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on February 24, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 5 Comments on Basquiat Our Patron Saint

In 2011, we rented an apartment (not a condo; everyone wants to make it a condo) in New Orleans. On the walls lived Jean-Michel Basquiat. For a while, the building had been abandoned and inhabitants used the walls for murals. The developer who bought the dilapidated building leaned into the graffiti and made Basquiat our patron saint of the...

Everything Here is New

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on February 19, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, LOVE. 2 Comments on Everything Here is New

Soon enough, it will be as if it has always been this way. Like the Katrina rabbits who appeared after the storm, hunted by the sauntering bobcat that replaced all the houses. A pulsing chorus of frogs arose—there’s a body of water here somewhere— when the body of the world transformed in the hurricane’s fist. ...

The Work of Julius Chambers

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on February 18, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments on The Work of Julius Chambers

When Mother remarried, we moved to my new dad’s home state of North Carolina. We went briefly to Durham then on to our forever-home, Charlotte. We arrived September 1970 when, thanks to the work of Julius Chambers, school across America was about to change. Chambers was a graduate of my alma mater, UNC Law School. Unlike me, he...

The Work of Thurgood Marshall

Written by novagiant on February 17, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on The Work of Thurgood Marshall

From when I was in the fifth grade until I went off to college, the work of Thurgood Marshall dominated my educational experience. Before Marshall was a United States Supreme Court Justice, he was an NAACP lawyer working for the Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He tried Civil Rights cases. Over and over again, he tried them. And he...

Don’t Call Me Miss Ellen

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on February 10, 2025. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments on Don’t Call Me Miss Ellen

When I was practicing law, I frequently appeared before an administration judge. This one trial, the old dude who the agency hired to act as the judge would call me Miss Ellen. He called the opposition Mr. Cockrell. Me, Miss Ellen. I was a lawyer. The male person on the other side of the case was a lawyer. But I was being talked down to every...