A tribe of aspirational Mississippians
Dear friends,
As we prepare for John T. Edge’s book talk in Columbus on Thursday, we were excited to discover that his good friend and TrueSouth producing partner Wright Thompson shared about his visit to Columbus in his recent column in The Atlantic.
Last weekend, I went to talk to a big crowd in Columbus, in the eastern part of the state, where the whole town was reading The Barn as a prompt for community-wide conversation. The strongest crowd reaction came when I responded to a question about our future by talking about a desperate need for a new tribe of Mississippians—a state united for the future, not forever divided by the past. It’s a point I’ve made at nearly every event, and nothing gets more nods, across race, class, and geography, than when that aspirational tribe is evoked.
As we engage and invest in realizing the vision of a new tribe of Mississippians, I have been so encouraged by the response we’re getting to the Community Read of The Barn. We had an amazing student turnout at our first book discussion, and the Columbus Arts Council put on a phenomenal event with the Emmett Till Interpretive Center.
I was reminded again yesterday at the dedication ceremony for two new historical markers for Henry Armstrong, a Hall-of-Fame boxing champion, and Robert Gleed, a Black businessman and elected official during Reconstruction. The marker for Gleed notes his accomplishments and goes on to add: “Gleed fled town after White mobs killed four Black men and attacked his house during the election of 1875.” He was the target of that violence for organizing Black voters.
As I listened to a high school student tell Gleed’s story, I was startled to hear the parallels with the story I’ve come to learn about Emmett Till’s final night—how hatred appeared in the middle of the night busting through the door of a place they were meant to be safe. And then I looked around at the crowd on Gleed’s Corner, his namesake, and noticed who had come to pay their respects: Black and White elders sitting together, Black and White students wearing matching shirts from the local boarding school they all attend together, the current Black mayor and the former White mayor applauding the reveal of the new monuments. I don’t think it was lost on anyone that the new sign for Gleed’s Corner sits catty-corner from the Lowndes County Courthouse lawn and the spot where the Confederate monument once sat. (To our knowledge, it was the first in Mississippi to be relocated.)
In addition to our Community Read programming, the book events we host and promote all have the same goal: to bring people together.
We’re lucky to have such a great partner in our local university, who is co-organizing not only our John T. Edge talk, but also the Banned Books Week read-aloud of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and the Feminist Book Club meeting for The Book Club for Troublesome Women (not to mention all of the Welty Symposium festivities).
We’ve also started a new group called Hope Compass with two local faith leaders around the idea that hope flourishes when we build intentional relationships. Our next gathering on October 18 will be discussing a book that really shifted my own thinking on the concept of hope. In Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life, co-author Dr. Chan Hellman shares his research on the science of hope. He argues that hope is not a passive wish, but instead an act that requires will, support, and vision — and the presence of hope in someone’s life is associated with strong overall well-being. That goes for a community, too.
Every time we come together around books and community, I feel my hope soar. No matter how big or small, each event we do plays a part in building and strengthening our tribe of Mississippians who aspire for a united future. And each time you visit us, you’re putting your chip in the pot toward that vision. We invite you to join us and find your place alongside us at one of our next community events.