Racism to Reconciliation Archives - Page 5 of 12

Lynching On the Courthouse Lawn

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on November 1, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 10 Comments on 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...

The Truth of High School

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on October 4, 2022. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation, Writing. 6 Comments on The Truth of High School

Y’all wanna see the truth of what I looked like in high school? It’s a hoot. And now it’s out there for everyone to peep at. Why, you might ask? Well, I wrote an essay about my odd junior high and high school experience in the land of the integrating South. Journalist Ellen Ann Fentress was kind enough to publish the...

THE MOVEMENT MADE US: A Telling

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on October 1, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 2 Comments on 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...

Emmett Till’s Memorial

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on August 30, 2022. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 14 Comments on Emmett Till’s Memorial

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...

Respect-Centered Reparations

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

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...

White-Centered Me

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

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...

Countries of Africa

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

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,...

Family Hero Stories

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

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...

Opening Our Literary Eyes

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

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...

Anti-Lynching Today

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

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...