Racism to Reconciliation Archives - Ellen Morris Prewitt

Emmett Till’s Memorial

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on August 30, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 12 Comments

This weekend, my husband and I went to Emmett Till’s memorial. In 1955, when Emmett Louis Till had just turned fourteen, a group of white men murdered him in Drew, Mississippi. Emmett had come to Mississippi on summer vacation. His cousin, who was his best friend, was returning to the family’s home state, and Emmett wanted to come with...

Respect-Centered Reparations

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on August 12, 2022. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 8 Comments

My last blog post talked about the shift in direction my reparations journey needs to take. That post introduced the impetus for the change. This blog post talks about what it might mean to shift from white-centered reparations to respect-centered reparations. Reparations: Story I Here’s a story: my Bigmama’s grandfather fought...

White-Centered Me

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on August 7, 2022. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments

I’ve been attending lots of Zoom meetings on racism along my reparations journey. It’s got me listening to myself. What do I hear? Me. Little ol’ white-centered me. I used to talk about the ways my family was on the right side of history. “My grandfather refused to join the White Citizens Council.” “My great-grandfather...

Countries of Africa

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on July 16, 2022. Posted in Featured, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments

Call me geographically challenged. By which I mean, put me in a hallway in a hotel, and I turn the wrong direction toward the elevator. Every. Single. Time. My husband learned early on that “You’ve been there,” wasn’t a sufficient response to a request for directions. Been there? More than once? Irrelevant. As for me, I’ve...

Family Hero Stories

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on July 7, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 12 Comments

If you are white and committed to racial justice, be prepared to give up what you are most proud of. I’m talking about your family hero stories. Your proud family—or personal—accomplishments. Look underneath those stories, and you might find harm done. What’s the Rest of your Family Story? Let me go first. Long as I remember,...

Opening Our Literary Eyes

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 24, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation, Writing. 4 Comments

I fancy myself embedded in a new strata of American history. That strata is white people gaining awareness of how whiteness shapes society. It’s a stupid conceit. White Americans have always known institutions were shaped for them. We only momentarily “forgot” for the years from, oh, 1972 to 2008. In our forgetting years, we told...

Anti-Lynching Today

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 16, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments

I cannot recommend this book on anti-lynching. In the original writings in The Light of Truth, Ida B. Wells aims to stop lynching by showing the facts. At the time, white America claimed lynching was a terrible but understandable reaction to Black men raping white women. It wasn’t. White Americans lynched Black Americans to enforce the...

The South and America

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 10, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation If anyone doubts the premise of Imani Perry’s book South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, all they have to do is look to the lawsuit poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. As Mississippi was the author of strategies...

Reparations Action

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 28, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 8 Comments

This is the 7th installment in my reparations series where we’ll turn from background to action. Click to read the introduction. Continue with background facts about me and the salacious real me facts. I’ve included some warnings, plus the joy of reparative work. My last post I told you the “why” of choosing creative writing as...

Reparations: Why Creative Writing

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 4, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, In the Name of Mississippi novel, Racism to Reconciliation. 6 Comments

This is the 6th installment in my reparations series. Click to read the introduction. Continue with background facts about me and the salacious real me facts. I’ve included some warnings, plus the joy of reparative work. Today, we turn to what led me to take up reparations. Fiction Leads to Fact Twice, I’ve delved into my...