Sinners Clarksdale Video and Upcoming Events

Hey Y’all,

As y’all know, Monica and I went to Clarksdale for the screening of Sinners. Tyler Yarbrough, the leader of the drive to get the film there, recently posted a brief video of the day’s events, which y’all can watch here. It’s a great testament to the young black activists in Clarksdale and the Delta working to make their home the best it can be. And, as an aside, see if y’all can spot your boy in the crowd. Additionally, here is the video of the day posted by Ryan Coogler’s production company, Proximity Media. Finally, to remind folks why we should see, discuss, and celebrate Sinners as much as possible, here is the link to my analysis of the film.

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Hey Y’all Again,

Congrats to the City of Clinton, Mississippi, NAACP Branch for winning the 2025 Dr. Ross Thalheimer Award, which is given by the National Office of the NAACP for outstanding programs and publications by State, State Area Conferences, and Local Units of the NAACP. The award was created in 1944 by Dr. Ross Thalheimer—psychologist, university professor, and author. Each year, Monica McInnis compiles the work done by the Clinton, Mississippi, Branch of the NAACP and submits it for this award, and, now, they have won this award multiple times, which speaks to the branch’s consistent and longtime service to its community.

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This morning’s Friday Forum will feature Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones, providing an update on the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office. For more information about today’s Friday Forum and upcoming Friday Forums, see the calendar of events below or contact Nicole McNamee at nmcnamee72@gmail.com.

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As part of this summer’s Juneteenth Celebration, Afrikan Art Gallery will host two events. First will be the R. Jess Brown, Jr., Summer Music Camp Finale. This will be followed by a book reading and signing by Walter Simpson, Mississippi’s first black firefighter, and his book, First on the Scene: My Journey through the Fires of Bigotry in Mississippi. For more information, see the calendar of events below.

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This week, in partnership with the Westside Theatre Foundation, the Mississippi Humanities Council will present a fundraiser screening of Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, an award-winning documentary celebrating one of Mississippi’s fiercest voices for justice. The screening will be followed by an unforgettable panel discussion featuring those who knew her best. This event is more than a celebration of history—it is a call to action. Recent federal funding cuts by DOGE have eliminated National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants, jeopardizing vital public programming like this. The MHC is turning to the community to help sustain these enriching initiatives that preserve Mississippi’s diverse stories and foster meaningful dialogue. For more information about the screening and to donate to MHC, see the calendar of events below.

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This week, poet, educator, emcee, and all-around griot Dr. Treasure Shields-Redmond will facilitate multiple events to celebrate Juneteenth. The events will include free 1917 East St Louis Race Massacre tours, an engaging art exhibit, and a powerful panel of living descendants of families impacted by the 1917 East St Louis Race Massacre. The free tours last about an hour and a half and will be followed by the exhibit and panel at the Sunshine Cultural Arts Center. For more information, see the calendar of events below.

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Award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay has posted a moving new article, “Juneteenth and Our Stole Summer: Thoughts on an Unlikely Season,” which can be read here.

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Prince scholar and host of Purple Knights Podcast, Chris Johnson has started a nine-part memoir podcast series, God is in the Groove. The series explores the transformative role Prince’s music has played throughout his life, especially as a person with a disability — weaving together personal storytelling with thoughtful conversations featuring family, close friends, Prince collaborators, scholars, and advocates. Each episode highlights a different stage of Chris’ journey through music, faith, resilience, and self-discovery. This week, he’s in conversation with the powerful vocalist Shelby J, who sang with Prince from 2006 to 2012, and y’all can watch that inspiring discussion here.

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Willow Books is pleased to announce the debut of a new monthly journal, Continuum. Forged in the success of the Black Fire This Time anthology series on the Black Arts Movement, Continuum will cover every era of Black American writing, from the earliest works from centuries prior to the present. Continuum Volume 1 will feature classics from the late icon Nikki Giovanni and haiku by Lenard Moore. Additional works include original The Lion King cast member Mark Allan Davis’ “Somebody ‘Blew Up’ San Francisco State College” and poetry by Ishmael Reed. Contemporary works from the greatest current generation writers will round out every edition. For more information and to purchase a copy, go here. Additionally, Willow Books continues to publish new and upcoming authors, including Reginald Flood’s new poetry collection, Refugeed, which includes “lucid poems that liberate the voices of a little-known population—slaves who were ‘refugeed,’ smuggled away from advancing Union Armies during the Civil War to preserve slavery’s rule. Braced with historical documentation from WPA interviews, we delve across generations of American history’s whip-torn surface to explore the soul of what it means to be free. Flood has written a necessary and poignant remembrance.” For more information and to purchase a copy, go here.

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This week’s Torch Literary Arts feature is award-winning poet Courtney Conrad, whose debut pamphlet, I Am Evidence, has won the Eric Gregory Award, Michael Marks Award, Bridport Prize Young Writers Award, Mslexia Women’s Pamphlet Prize, and more. She’s also been published by Callaloo, Obsidian, Poetry Review, and many others. To read more about Conrad and her work, go here.

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Mississippi native, poet, playwright, editor, and cultural critic Charlie R. Braxton has been quite busy this week, being interviewed by hip-hop magazine, Murder Dog, which y’all can read here, and publishing an article, “Four Artists that Prove Mississippi Is the Birthplace of American Music,” in Love Black Girls.org that y’all can read here.

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The Jackson State University Margaret Walker Alexander Center has posted its latest newsletter, which includes information about its annual Jubilee Picnic to celebrate the birthday of award-winning poet and novelist Margaret Walker Alexander, Jackson’s Summer Feeding Program, Research Opportunity, and the HBCU Radio Preservation Project that can be read here and here.

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Here is the link to the latest newsletter of Rosarium Publishing, which is a black-owned publishing company managed by poet, fiction writer, editor, and scholar Bill Campbell. Rosarium Publishing specializes in speculative fiction, comics, and a touch of crime fiction—all with a multicultural flair. To learn more about them, here is a link to their website.

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The always productive fiction writer, music scholar, and cultural critic Michael Gonzales has published an insightful new article, “4 the So-Called Avant-Garde: The Life and Afterlife of Jean-Michel Basquiat,” which can be read here.

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Lolwe is offering masterclasses on multiple creative writing genres and techniques. For more details, see the calendar of events below.

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Muntu Dance Theatre hosts dance workshops on various Saturdays throughout the month. For the next workshop, see the calendar of events below.

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Award-winning poet and professor Dr. Angela Ball has two new essays on people who helped shape the writer and person she became: “A Simple Song (here)” and “My American Uncle (here).”

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Narrative 4 is an organization of creatives that uses storytelling to build community and civic engagement. They have partnered with National Schools Network to curate programming with various universities to use storytelling to address multiple issues. Next week, they will curate the next Higher Ed Community of Practice, which will be an online session, giving folks the chance to:

• Hear what other universities are doing with N4

• Share your questions and ideas

• Connect with others shaping the practice of compassion in higher ed

For more information, see the calendar of events below.

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The Mississippi Museum of Art is thrilled to celebrate the public opening of the 2025 Mississippi Invitational: Call Home with a special public tour and curatorial talk led by this year’s guest curator TK Smith, Curator of the Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Smith’s talk will explore the concept of home as a source of creative inspiration. Drawing on themes from the exhibition, he will examine how artists engage with identity, memory, and place through their work. For more information, see the calendar of events below.

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Award-winning novelist Ellen Prewitt has published an outstanding essay, “Granddaughter of the Instigator,” which chronicles the history of her ancestor who led the Vicksburg Massacres during Reconstruction, especially the murder of Vicksburg’s first Black Sheriff, Peter Crosby, which y’all can read here. Additionally, Prewitt was asked to speak at the unveiling of the Historical Marker by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to remember the life and legacy of Sheriff Peter Crosby. Although that event has passed, if you are ever in Vicksburg, you can view the marker, which is located at the Warren County Courthouse, 1009 Cherry Street, Vicksburg, MS.

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Rooted Magazine editor Lauren Rhoades has published an insightful article, “At the Synagogue in the Heart of the Delta (here),” on the rekindling of her Jewish identity in the overwhelmingly Christian Deep South. To check out more of Rooted’s great content, go here. Rooted publishes weekly questionnaires with interesting Mississippi transplants, natives, and expats. Their lagniappe issues feature original prose, poetry, art, and photography from Mississippi writers and artists. Y’all can subscribe to the online magazine at rooted.substack.com.

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Next week, the Jackson State University Margaret Walker Center will facilitate the Catherine Coleman Literary Arts, Food, and Justice Initiative Summer Workshop. MacArthur “Genius” Award Winner Kiese Laymon recently made the announcement about the program named in honor of his grandmother. Originally founded at the University of Mississippi, while Laymon was on the faculty there, the Coleman Program will provide avenues for emerging writers across the state and in the city of Jackson to engage the rich legacy of creative writing in Mississippi, the tradition of southern food ways, and the history of social justice movements in their communities. Layman stated, “We are moving the Initiative to the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State because my grandmama sent all her daughters to Jackson State. This initiative will continue to help young folks in Jackson become the next Danielle Buckingham or Leslie McLemore Jr., two of the greatest young artists in Mississippi.” Laymon, who was among the MacArthur honorees for his work as a writer “bearing witness to the myriad forms of violence that mark the Black experience in formally inventive fiction and nonfiction,” chose to make the announcement following his MacArthur news. The MacArthur scholar noted, “Our hope is to ritualize workshops and incredible food for young folks in our community who might not get a lot of time to write and read ‘creatively.’ We also want young people to consider the creativity that gets food from the land to the table in Mississippi.” Through writing seminars and programming led by Jackson State students and faculty as well as special invited guests, these young people will hone their skills as readers and writers while learning the techniques of revision essential in expressing their voices through the written word. Jackson State Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Alisa Mosley, called it “a phenomenal day,” adding that “Mr. Laymon has been so generous with his time, talent, and respect for Jackson State. There is a season for everything, and I am so grateful for the effort to set these wheels in motion.” Laymon’s investment in Mississippi’s youth mirrors that of his grandmother, who stayed and fought for a better future for the state’s children rather than leave for promises of greater freedom and opportunities through the Great Migration to the North. Laymon even announced that he will match up to $50,000 in donations to the program for the next month. JSU MWA Center Director, Robert Luckett, Ph.D. asserted, “This city and Margaret Walker had major impacts on Kiese’s life and career, and we are so proud that he decided to entrust us with carrying out the momentous work of the Catherine Coleman Literary Arts, Food and Justice Initiative. The incredible honor of being a MacArthur Fellow is so well deserved and will bring great recognition to him and to this program now permanently settled on our campus.” People may make a tax-deductible donation to the Coleman Initiative by visiting the JSU Development Foundation website and selecting the Catherine Coleman Fund under “General Designation.” For more information, see the calendar of events below.

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Dr. Sarah L. Webb launched the global initiative Colorism Healing in 2013 to raise awareness and foster individual and collective healing through creative and critical work. Her myriad efforts to address colorism include designing college courses, hosting an international writing contest, publishing books, teaching workshops, and mentoring students across the world from Sacramento, California, to Sydney, Australia. Here is the link to Dr. Webb’s latest newsletter. Additionally, here is a link to Dr. Sarah L. Webb’s YouTube page, Colorism Healing, and here are the links to her website and Instagram page.

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Mississippi native, fiction writer, playwright, and healthcare advocate Katrina Byrd has a new article, “Self Advocacy,” which is a report of her time at the 2025 Mississippi Mega DisAbility Conference, which y’all can read here.

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Here is another great article, “The Man Who Doesn’t Smile Is Smiling Now,” explaining how President Agent Orange is using the protests against immigration as a diversion to his policies and attempts to make the rich richer by making the poor poorer by Moss Point, Mississippi, native and Princeton Professor Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr., which is posted on his platform, A Native Son. Doc Glaude asserts that President Agent Orange is using the protests as an opportunity to use military force against everyone who disagrees with and resists him, regardless of the issue. Glaude’s latest book is Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own Democracy, which can be purchased here.

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You are cordially invited to contribute an article or essay to the National Council for Black Studies Annual Report on the State of Affairs for Africana Communities in 2026 and beyond. This report will include short APA-style essays (between 2,000 and 2,500 words, or 8–10 double-spaced pages, including references) on new, emerging, and ongoing current issues and innovations of importance to Africana communities in the U.S. and anywhere in the global African world. NCBS’ mission is to create a space for our discipline to offer historical context, future projections, solutions, and culturally grounded analyses of current needs, concerns, innovations, and ideas of people of African ancestry anywhere in the world. The theme of this call for papers is Roots and Routes of Black Agency: Strategies for Collective Liberation, Memory, and Futurity. NCBS is inviting essays that explore how African/Black communities across the globe are rooting and cultivating themselves in ancestral knowledge, linked future, memory, and historical continuity while charting new routes (scientific, technological, political, spiritual, and educational) for development, advancement, and liberation. We particularly seek papers that demonstrate how the discipline of Black Studies contributes to understanding, sustaining, and advancing these roots and routes. For more information, see the calendar of events below.

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Before Elvis: The African-American Musicians Who Made the King is an interesting new book that studies the black musicians who influenced Elvis Presley. After Baz Luhrmann’s movie, Elvis, hit theaters, audiences and critics alike couldn’t help but question the black origins of Presley’s music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King​, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them. For more information and to purchase a copy, go here.

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Damon Young’s That’s How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor is a collection of black humor from some of the most acclaimed writers and performers at work today. This groundbreaking anthology features the best, funniest, and blackest essays, short stories, letters, and rants. With words that roast, ignite, and burn while connecting to and coalescing around a singular thesis, That's How They Get You emphasizes how and why black American humor is uniquely transfixing. This is a mixture of not just observational anxieties and stream-of-consciousness lucidities but also acute political clarity about America. Edited and with an introduction by Young, the collection features new material from an all-star roster of contributors, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Mahogany L. Browne, Wyatt Cenac, Mississippi native Kiese Laymon, Deesha Philyaw, Roy Wood Jr., and Nicola Yoon. For more information and to purchase a copy, go here.

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Poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar C Liegh McInnis has a poem and two essays (“Eshu’s Post-Dated Poem,” “The Mythological People of Color Coalition,” and “‘This or That?’: Voting for Vice President Kamala Harris Despite Democratic Debacle and Cowardice”) published in a newly released anthology, Donald Trump’s Second Coming—Is Democracy Dead, Dying or Alive: An Anthology of North American Writers and African Writers, Vol 4., edited by Tendai Mwanaka. The collection features stories, poetry, essays, plays, fiction, mixed genres, songs, and visual art of writers from Africa and North America, discussing President Agent Orange’s impact on American democracy, global democracy, and the reaction and resistance to it. Other noted American writers included in the collection are Mississippi native, poet, playwright, editor, and cultural critic Charlie R. Braxton, who has two essays in the collection, and New York native, poet, editor, and arts activist Bob McNeal, who has four poems included. In total, the collection has seven essays, two short stories, ten artworks, and twenty-eight poems from writers and artists from Africa and North America. For more information or to purchase a copy, go here.

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This summer, Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) will curate two dynamic events all summer long. First will be the 2025 Mississippi Invitational, which is a biennial exhibition that highlights artists living and working in our state. Guest Curator, TK Smith, chose this year’s artists. Exhibition participants will be eligible to apply for the Jane Crater Hiatt Artist Fellowship—a grant of up to $20,000 to support a single artist’s creative development. For a list of all the invited artists and the dates of their showing, see the calendar of events below. Next, MMA will present Capital Pictures, a limited engagement film series celebrating the art of great filmmaking in partnership with the Mississippi Film Society. This inaugural series kicks off this summer with the films of trailblazing director Oscar Micheaux, the first Black American to produce a feature-length film. Three of his early silent films will be paired with an improvised DJ set. Cash bar. The June film will be Body and Soul (1925), which is about an escaped prisoner who impersonates a Reverend in Paul Robeson’s motion picture debut. The screening will feature a live, improvised soundtrack by DJ Fluseph. The July film will be Within Our Gates (1920), which tells the story of Sylvia Landry, a young African-American woman goes North to raise money for a rural school in the Deep South. Her romance with a Black doctor eventually leads to revelations about her family’s past and her own mixed-race ancestry. And, the August film will be The Girl from Chicago (1932), in which a federal agent falls in love while on assignment in Mississippi. For more information about both events, see the calendar of events below.

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Obsidian received the news that its current National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants were terminated. This decision jeopardizes the support of writers, artists, and editors, along with the publication and programmatic activities, of two issues in progress:

• Volume 50, Obsidian at 50: Looking Forward/Looking Back—Awakening & Activating the Archive

• Volume 51.2, VRY PRSNT BLK: The Black Artist as Moral Witness, edited by Duriel E. Harris and guest editor L. Renée

The staff of Obsidian knows they are not alone; many other literary and arts organizations are reeling from the news of lost funding. For Obsidian, the timing of the cut is especially alarming, as they are honoring their 50th anniversary as a peer-reviewed, award-winning publication that cultivates Black imagination and innovation, supporting Black, African, and African Diaspora creatives. Just before the announcement of our NEA grants being terminated, Obsidian participated in a first-of-its-kind study, Magnitude and Bond: A Field Study on Black Literary Arts Organizations (See below for the full announcement.). The findings show only 5% of all annual charitable giving in the US goes to arts and culture, and the percentage of that amount dedicated to literary arts is so low it’s negligible. And, before the termination of NEA grants, one of the largest percentage of common funding sources was from federal grants. So where are we now?

While often being underfunded, overworked, and under-resourced, the termination of two already awarded grants from the NEA, an institution that has for six decades played a vital role in supporting the literary arts, is distressing for Obsidian. But as Obsidian Editor Duriel E. Harris has often said, “We fully believe that through partnership and community engagement, we rise together in support of Black literature and arts toward the triumph of all people.” Now is the time for us to rise, together, as we all navigate losses in a variety of forms.

To Donate:

Make a tax-deductible donation to help Obsidian complete its work in progress.

Become a member to help protect Obsidian’s legacy of Black literary excellence and publishing independence.

To Be Heard:

Use your voice to advocate for sustained arts funding. Personalize your passion for the irreplaceable value of the arts through outreach to your elected officials. Our friends at the Americans for the Arts have generously created a series of templates:

• Send an EMAIL to your elected officials

• You can use this PHONE script when calling your Members of Congress

• Send a LETTER via the US Postal Service with a personalized note to your elected officials

To Spread the Word:

Get a subscription for yourself or a friend, or order one of Obsidian’s latest issues:

• 49.2, Outta Sight! Sonic Bodies in the Galaxy of Black Listening, edited by Duriel E. Harris and guest editor Tracie Morris

• 50.1, featuring new poetry, fiction/hybrid work, drama/performance, visual art, and the Furious Flower Poetry Prize folio, along with an introduction to Obsidian at 50: Awakening the Archive

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The Mississippi Writers Guild (MWG) has officially launched a new website and will now send all future newsletters, blog updates, and event announcements directly through its new platform at www.mississippiwritersguild.com. To continue receiving updates, please take a moment to visit the site and sign up as a subscriber or member. If you joined MWG anytime in 2025, please include that info when you sign up or email us at mississippiwritersguild@gmail.com. MWG make sure your membership is marked in the system so you can access all Members Only resources.

MWG is building something meaningful:

· A better-connected writing community

· Member-only workshops, submission tools, and publishing guides

· Blog and resource updates to keep you inspired and informed

If you’ve enjoyed being part of MWG, now’s the perfect time to make it official and become a member. Your voice belongs here — and your next chapter starts now. To join or subscribe, go here, and for additional questions contact Richelle Putnam at richelle1putnam@yahoo.com.

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Dr. John Zheng’s interview of poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar C Liegh McInnis has been published in African American Review (57.2), which is cited and archived online here by Project Muse. And, here is the link to purchase the issue. To subscribe to ARR, go here. To order a copy of this issue (57.2) by phone, contact (800) 548-1784 or jrnlcirc@press.jhu.edu. AAR has featured renowned writers and cultural critics, including Trudier Harris, Arnold Rampersad, Hortense Spillers, Amiri Baraka, Cyrus Cassells, Rita Dove, Charles Johnson, Cheryl Wall, Toni Morrison, and many more. The official publication of the Modern Language Association’s Division on Black American Literature and Culture, AAR fosters a vigorous conversation among writers and scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

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The Bob Moses Conference will be held in mid-October to celebrate and study the work of legendary Civil Rights activist Bob Moses who was one of the primary strategists for The Movement, especially for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Freedom Summer, Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). We will share program details and event registration in the coming weeks. For more information, see the calendar of events below.

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Here, here, and here are pictures and video from the 55th Gibbs-Green Commemoration to memorialize the 1970 attack on Jackson State University by the Jackson Police Department, the Mississippi Highway Patrol, and the Mississippi National Guard, which took the lives of Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, a twenty-one-year-old JSU student, and James Earl Green, a seventeen-year-old Jim Hill High School Student along with wounding eighteen others as law enforcement fired over four hundred rounds into Alexander Hall, a female Dorm. The photos include many of the speakers, including Mrs. Dale Gibbs—the wife of Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, Ms. Gloria Green McCray—the sister of James Earl Green, JSU Interim President Dr. Denise Jones Gregory, State Representative Zakiya Summers, James “Lap” Baker—JSU Class of 1970, Nadia Wright—Award-winning youth poet, C Liegh McInnis—poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar, and Dr. Robert Luckett—Director of the JSU Margaret Walker Alexander Center. Finally, props to Doc Luckett for accepting the baton from Dr. Jean “Jughead” Young and never wavering from his promise to keep this essential moment in Mississippi and American history ever-present so that all will know what happened, why it happened, and how Jackson State University and its community survived and thrived through the worst that Jim Crow and the neo-Confederates could muster. Additionally, BVC Films has an agreement with the Gibbs family to produce a six-part limited TV series, Blood on the Books, based on Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, which will also feature James Earl Green and others associated with the event. It’s great to know that BVC Films has been in talks with Doc Luckett through JSU Communications about getting story right, the possibility of filming on campus, and speaking with others who lived this event for even more research. For more about this, go here.

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Valley Voices, vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring 2025), “River and Land: The Mississippi Delta,” issue, edited by Dr. John Zheng—Chair of the Mississippi Valley State University English Department, is available, and it is a fantastic issue. The poetry contains contributions from Claude Wilkinson, Sterling D. Plumpp, Larry D. Thomas, George Drew, Philip C. Kolin, C. T. Salazar, Michelle McMillan-Holifield, and two new works celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Jerry W. Ward by Charlie R. Braxton and C Liegh McInnis. There are also vivid essays on the land of Mississippi by Hermine Pinson and John Zheng, insightful criticism by John J. Han and Allison Wiltshire, beautiful photography by Claude Wilkinson and J. Guaner, and intriguing fiction by Jack Crocker and Dick Daniels. To purchase a copy of Abrasion & Erasing: Essays, Interviews, and Poems of Jerry W. Ward, Jr., send $10 to Valley Voices at MVSU 7242, 14000 Highway 82 West, Itta Bena, MS 38941 or valley_voices@yahoo.com.

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The group responsible for Jackson’s Black Business Directory (our version of the Green Book) is updating it and needs your help by identifying Black-owned businesses in and around MedgarEversville (aka Jackson, Mississippi). Please send the name, address, and owner of the Black-owned Businesses that you patronize to Asinia Lukata Chikuyu at afrikan_tbt@yahoo.com. This Black Business Listing is intended to promote the increased patronage of Black-owned businesses to increase the circulation of Black Dollars within the Black Community. By doing so, the Black Community will begin to take on some of the responsibilities for the socio-economic and cultural development of the community and its residents. Increasing the circulation of Black Dollars will enable Black businesses to grow and increase reinvestment in the Black Community. As such, they wanna know two thangs from y'all

1. what business categories should be in this directory?

2. what particular Black Business in Jackson do you wanna be sure is listed

They will compile the information into an updated Black Business Directory for the #HITTHEMINTHEPOCKET HARD and LONG-TERM initiative. Working together, we can make some good things happen for Jackson’s Black Community. Black Business growth and success will mean jobs, community investment, and more ops for our youth. Afrikan/Black Community Development Economics (#ABCDE) is somethang we must do. Communities around MedgarEversville are growing because those folks support their community. As Malcolm X stated, “Our people have to be made to see that any time you take your dollar out of your community and spend it in a community where you don’t live, the community where you live will get poorer and poorer, and the community where you spend your money will get richer and richer.”

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If y’all missed poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar C Liegh McInnis’ analysis of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, y’all can read it here. Also, we’d like to share two more insightful discussions of Sinners that approach the film from different positions but are seeking the same end. Poet, literary theorist, librarian, arts activist, and Prince scholar Scott Woods’ essay, “Sinners Soars, But Act Like You Been Here Before (here),” asks that viewers, especially black viewers, engage the film with a more critical eye to understand what is and isn’t there to have a full appreciation of Coogler’s work and why black folks still need the blues. SIUE Professor and literary theorist Dr. Howard Rambsy’s brief essay, “Ryan Coogler, C Liegh McInnis, and Black Convergences (here),” asks viewers to understand Sinners as “cultural cataloging” in the most dense way to teach and celebrate black history and black genius within the limited timeframe a film allows. Finally, here is a link to “Sinners: A Reading and Resource List,” which provides a syllabus of materials to aid in the understanding and enjoyment of the film. Together, the two commentaries and the syllabus can aid in how we approach, discuss, share, and celebrate black art.

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Over the past three years, filmmaker Mark Brockway has been working on a new documentary, Where We Daily Tread, which tells the story of white supremacy, the Black Power Movement, and the May 1970 attack on Jackson State by Mississippi law enforcement. He has begun uploading very brief clips of interviews for the doc, and here is the link to give y’all a “taste” of what the doc will be. Two of the clips include insights from poet, short story writer, Prince scholar, and JSU graduate C Liegh McInnis.

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If you missed the Polished Solid #PopLife40 Prince Symposium, which celebrated 40 years of Prince’s Around the World in a Day, The Family’s self-titled album, and Sheila E.’s Romance 1600, you missed another great three days of Prince scholarship and community. Symposium curator and NYU Professor De Angela Duff has started uploading the videos of all the panels and roundtables, which y’all can watch here. These include the brilliant Prince scholar Edgar Kruize’s presentation, “Love Is the Color This Place Imparts,” which deconstructs how the album cover artwork of Around the World in a Day tells a cohesive story to reflect the message(s) of the songs, the first keynote, featuring The Family, the second keynote with saxophonist Eddie M, who is C Liegh’s favorite horn player to play with Prince, Maceo Parker notwithstanding, and more.

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The Spring 2025 edition of Ishmael Reed’s Konch Magazine has been published with its usual excellent poetry, fiction, and essays, including two tribute commentaries to poet and literary theorist Dr. Jerry W. Ward by poet and activist Julia Wright and poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar C Liegh McInnis, which y’all can read here.

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Abrasion & Erasing: Essays, Interviews, and Poems of Jerry W. Ward, Jr., edited by poet, scholar, and Mississippi Valley State University English Chair Dr. John Zheng, is available and beautiful—physically and literarily. Abrasion & Erasing is a collection of essays, interviews, and poems by Doc Ward published over the years in Valley Voices: A Literary Review and the Journal of Ethnic American Literature. Through this collection, Dr. Zheng has captured and illuminated the beauty, power, and significance of Doc Ward as one of the most important literary voices of Mississippi, the South, and America. We are extremely proud to share that poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar C Liegh McInnis’ interview with Doc Ward is included, along with interviews of Doc Ward by storyteller, visual artist, and arts activist Diane Williams and Dr. Tian Zhang—Professor of English at Central China Normal University. This collection is a testament and call to action to continue the work of Doc Ward as he served skillfully as a steward of black literature, leaving a brilliant blueprint for us to follow. As an artist, scholar, and Afro-Mississippian, I thank you for this work! To purchase a copy of Abrasion & Erasing: Essays, Interviews, and Poems of Jerry W. Ward, Jr., send $10 to Valley Voices at MVSU 7242, 14000 Highway 82 West, Itta Bena, MS 38941 or valley_voices@yahoo.com.

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President Agent Orange’s attempts to create a new American Oligarchy have impacted Mississippi again. “The Mississippi Humanities Council (MHC) received notice from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that its federal funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has been terminated effective immediately. MHC, along with its colleagues at other state councils and the Federation of State Humanities Councils (FSHC), are looking into a possible legal response. Meanwhile, we urgently need you to contact your elected leaders in Congress and show your support for the Council’s work in Mississippi. Remind them how important the Council’s work is in our state and urge them to stop DOGE from gutting the NEH and state humanities councils. The Mississippi Humanities Council serves as the state affiliate of the NEH, and if the termination of funding to state councils is not stopped, we will lose all of the federal funding that supports our work. Please contact your senators and members of congress to urge them to support the continued funding of NEH and state humanities councils. Remind them that in 2024, with just $1 million in federal funding, the Council presented 750 programs across 90 communities and supported 65 grants to various institutions, including colleges, historical societies, museums, and community organizations. These initiatives include traveling Smithsonian exhibits, our Speakers Bureau, the Mississippi Freedom Trail, youth reading programs, and transformative prison education courses and book clubs.” Here is a link to public talking points to support MHC, here is a link to a script for contacting elected officials, and here is a link to donate directly to MHC. In closing, I’ll leave y’all with my poem, “What Good Are Poems? (here)” which I hope makes it plain why art is important to every community.

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Here and here are links to a fantastic new funk documentary, We Want the Funk, which was just released on PBS this week. It has a host of funk legends and scholars interviewed, including noted Prince scholar and NYU Professor De Angela Duff, music archivist, DJ, and Loyola and Tulane Professor Melissa A. Weber aka DJ Soul Sister, and noted cultural critic and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal. This is one of the best documentaries on Funk!

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Cultural critic and filmmaker Nelson George’s Finding the Funk is an excellent documentary despite George’s ongoing lame-ass attempt to minimize Prince from the history of funk. Luckily, the real musicians that he interviews don’t take the bait when asked about Prince and make it clear that Prince is as much of a funk musician as he is anything else. Yet, that being said, I’m clear that Finding the Funk is a great doc that y’all can watch here. Additionally, George has spent the last year or so uploading outtakes of interviews for his doc that can be seen here. There are so many highlights that I won’t do justice naming a few, but I gotta call y’all’s attention to some, namely writer and director Reggie Hudlin who manages to give a brief yet thorough history of Parliament/Funkadelic (here). Hudlin perfectly weaves history, sociopolitical context, and aesthetic theory to provide one of the best explanations of who Parliament/Funkadelic are and why they are essential. Additionally, writer, arranger, producer, and bass master Marcus Miller’s two-part interview (one and two) is a masterclass. And, writer, arranger, and producer Niles Rodgers’ three-part interview (one, two, and three) is more required viewing to understand the importance of bands and live music to black culture. Again, George, to his credit, interviewed a ton of masters for his doc, and y’all can watch many of those complete interviews and outtakes here.

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John Blake has a new article, “What Happened to the Funk: How America Lost Its Groove,” which can be read here.

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As part of this summer’s Juneteenth Celebration, Afrikan Art Gallery will host a book reading and signing by Walter Simpson, Mississippi’s first black firefighter, and his book, First on the Scene: My Journey through the Fires of Bigotry in Mississippi. For more information, see the calendar of events below.

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The 2025 National Black Book Festival will be in Houston this fall. They will be celebrating their 18th anniversary and are looking forward to 2025 being their best year yet! If you’re an author, publisher, or entrepreneur interested in acquiring a vendor table at 2025 NBBF, early bird registration is now open. Registrations are starting at an unprecedented rate, and they are already at 45% capacity. As a result, it’s best to place your table deposit and register as soon as possible. For more information, see the calendar of events below.

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Magnitude and Bond: A Field Study on Black Literary Arts Organizations is now LIVE! This first-of-its-kind field study focuses on Black literary arts service organizations that provide essential programming, services, and networks of support to the literary community. These organizations have modeled resilience in the face of concentric disparities often in the absence of institutional support and recognition. To produce this research, Cave Canem and Ithaka S+R collaborated closely with a working group, composed of directors from Getting Word: Black Literature for Black Liberation, as well as two literary experts in the field, to hone the research questions and instruments that would become this study. Click here to explore the Magnitude and Bond webpage, read the full study, flip through our executive summary e-zine, and learn more about upcoming programs.

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Poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar C Liegh McInnis appeared on long-time media veteran and Prince scholar Tonya Pendleton’s WURD radio show Reality Check to read his poem, “Black Man,” and discuss the continued significance of observing and celebrating Black History Month. To watch the recording, go here and then go to the 1:41:38 mark. Feel free to leave a like or comment so that Sister P knows that y’all were there. Also, if y’all would like to read “Black Man,” go here.

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On November 21, 2024, in New Orleans, poet, fiction writer, playwright, and editor Kalamu ya Salaam was joined by poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar C Liegh McInnis to discuss Salaam’s new novel, Walkin’ Blues, and their discussion was recently uploaded here.

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Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters has released its special issue documenting and celebrating the Jackson State University Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival. In 2023, the Jackson State University Margaret Walker Alexander Center curated the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the original 1973 festival, which hosted most of the major black women writers of the day. In the same vein, the 2023 festival hosted many of the major black women writers of today. Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, one of the three major African-American literary journals, has published a special proceedings issue of the 2023 JSU MWA Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival that includes scholarly essays, poetry, fiction, and artwork presented during the festival along with interviews, reflections, and photography from the festival. The Callaloo special proceedings issue documents this historic gathering of scholars and artists, including noted writers Jesmyn Ward, Alice Walker, Paula Giddings, Maryemma Graham, Imani Perry, Tiffany Caesar, Barbara Lewis, and a host of JSU professors and products—Tonea Stewart, Shanna L. Smith, Iely Mohamed, Roy Lewis, RaShell R. Smith-Spears, LaWanda Dickens, Ebony Lumumba, Kaitlyn Taylor, and C Liegh McInnis. To view the full table of contents, go here. For more information about the Callaloo Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival Special Issue, go here, and to purchase a single print or electronic issue, go here. Once y’all get to the page, scroll down to the print section or the electronic section and choose The Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival 50th Anniversary: A Special Issue Vol. 42, No. 3, Summer Issue 2024. Finally, to give y’all an idea of the type of scholarship presented during the festival and included in the special issue, here is a link to C Liegh McInnis’ edited video presentation of his paper, “‘You Will Be Moved’: Exploring Black Liberation Theology in the Work of Margaret Walker Alexander and Prince.” The complete version of his paper is in the Callaloo special issue along with his poem, “My People.” Other amazing sessions at the festival include the Opening Session, which was a Tribute to the Original Participants hosted my award-winning actress and JSU graduate Tonea Stewart (here), Dr. Maryemma Graham’s keynote, Nikki Giovanni’s talk, and Sonia Sanchez’s talk. For more about Callaloo, go here.

Additionally, Jackson State University’s The Researcher: An Interdisciplinary Journal published a special issue (In Our Own Words: The Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival 50th Anniversary Commemorative Issue) that y’all can read here. Y’all can also purchase a print copy of the issue here. C Liegh McInnis has a poem, “For Sappho, Margaret, Marie, and Iley (After Catherine Pierce’s Message to POL),” and an essay, “The Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival as Performative Manifestation of Margaret Walker Alexander’s Literary Manifesto and Genius,” included in the issue, along with great works by scholars and poets, such as Dr. Tiffany Caesar, Alissa Rae Funderburk, Angela Stewart, Dr. Craig Meyer, Dr. Shanna Smith, Patricia Jones, Ming Joi, Barbara Brewster Lewis, and Dr. RaShell Smith-Spears. Special thanks to Dr. Candis Pizzetta, editor of The Researcher, for compiling this wonderful special issue. This commemorative issue was crafted before the actual festival as a way to promote and highlight the festival as it was occurring.

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Poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar C Liegh McInnis appeared on The Eddrick Show, which is hosted by Eddrick Jerome, a talented writer and award-winning short film producer from Northern California. Jerome is also the former host of The Globe Newspaper Hour on KECG 88.1 FM - More Public Radio in Oakland, CA. (Shoutout to Alice Tisdale, Editor Emeritus of the Jackson Advocate, for McInnis and Jerome.) Brother Jerome asked if C Liegh would discuss songs in which Prince is directly addressing issues specific to the African-American community. Here and here are the YouTube and audio only versions of their discussion. We hope y’all enjoy the discussion, and, of course, feel free to let us know what y’all think.

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The Mississippi Book Festival has posted videos and photos of all the panels, conversations, and keynotes from this year’s festival. To see links to the full schedule, go here. And, here are links to just a few of the panels and conversations from this year. C Liegh McInnis was the moderator for the poetry panel, which included another stellar group of poets: Leona Sevick (The Bamboo Wife), Hannah V. Warren (Slaughterhouse for Old Wives' Tales), A.H. Jerriod Avant (Muscadine), and Adam Clay (Circle Back) and can be viewed here. Other great discussions feature award-winning novelist Jesmyn Ward (here), award-winning poet and former Mississippi Poet Laureate Beth Ann Fennelly with award-winning poet Major Jackson (here), Mississippi Poet Laurate Catherine Pierce and the Mississippi Youth Poetry Project (here), storyteller and visual artist Diane Williams on the Mississippi Culture Panel (here), best-selling and award-winning novelist Angie Thomas on the Middle Grade Dreams Panel (here), The Female Lead in Myth and Fantasy Panel (here), and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and US/MS Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey (here).

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Here is a very cool video celebrating Jackson, Mississippi, the City with Soul.

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Prince scholar and NYU Professor De Angelia Duff has uploaded all of the presentations, panels, and roundtables for the #Come30 Virtual Prince Symposium. To watch all of the events, including C Liegh McInnis’ presentation, “Part I: Come as the Introduction/EP to The Gold Experience or When Life Imitates Art and/or Art Imitates Life in the Artistic Production of Prince,” go here.

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Tougaloo College grad Dr. Howard Rambsy II aka Doc HR is the author of two excellent books, Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers and The Black Arts Enterprise and the Production of African American Poetry. He has dedicated time over the years to chronicling the work of C Liegh McInnis at his wonderful website Cultural Front, which can be read here. His latest commentary on McInnis’ work, “A Local Conscious Poet Who Knows a Lot about Prince,” can be read here.

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I am both honored and excited to have been interviewed by the brilliant Scott Woods, editor of Rock Critics.com, which features interviews with some of the most noted music journalists of the past sixty years. (This Scott Woods is not to be confused with the other brilliant Scott Woods who is a noted Prince scholar.) The title of the interview is “The Aesthetics of Prince: An Interview with C Liegh McInnis” and can be read here. It’s a very lengthy interview of my work as a Prince scholar and engages a few things that I haven’t discussed regarding my work on Prince. One of the coolest parts of the interview, for me, is that I got to shout out Prince scholar Harold Pride about midway through the interview and that I got to shout out the Polished Solid Prince Symposium and What Did Prince Do This Week? at the end of the interview. RockCritics.com is also on Twitter, which y’all know that I’m not. So, if y’all feel so inclined, locate and checkout his tweet about the interview as well. I hope y’all enjoy the interview and, as always, feel free to hit me back with your thoughts or feedback.

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The Jackson State University Creative Writing website is live and can be accessed here. Also, to give to this new program, go here. Once you are at the page, complete the amount and contact information, type “Department of English, Creative Writing,” in the “or other” box at the bottom of the form, and submit payment. And, here is a link to poet, short story writer, and Prince scholar C Liegh McInnis discussing the newly established JSU Creative Writing Concentration and Minor.

The JSU creative writing offers a concentration and minor for its Bachelor of Arts program. Unlike many creative writing programs across the country, JSU’s creative writing concentration and minor will allow students to specialize in multiple genres if they desire. Additionally, unlike most creative writing programs across the country, JSU’s creative writing concentration and minor will encourage and prepare students to use their writing to engage social justice and socio-political issues by offering a capstone class that will match a student with an organization or institution that is doing the type of social justice work that the young writer desires to engage with one’s writing. This new concentration and minor were developed as a collaborative effort between Dr. Ebony Lumumba—Chair, Dr. RaShell Smith-Spears—Graduate Coordinator, and C Liegh McInnis. For more information, contact Dr. Lumumba at ebony.o.lumumba@jsums.edu or Dr. Smith-Spears at rashell.smith-spears@jsums.edu.

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Props to the Jackson State University Faculty Senate, under the leadership of Dr. Dawn Bishop, for passing the “Resolution of the Jackson State University Faculty Senate Defending Academic Freedom to Teach about Race, Gender Justice and Critical Race Theory Adopted by the Faculty Senate January 27, 2022,” which reads, in part, “THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Jackson State University Faculty Senate resolutely rejects any attempts by bodies external to the faculty to restrict or dictate university curriculum on any matter, including matters related to racial and social justice, and will stand firm against encroachment on faculty authority by the legislature or the Boards of Trustees… BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate affirms the Joint Statement on Efforts to Restrict Education about Racism, authored by the AAUP, PEN America, the American Historical Association, and the Association of American Colleges & Universities, endorsed by over seventy organizations, and issued on June 16, 2021.”

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Every Monday at 6:30 p.m., Afrikan Art Gallery & Bookstore (800 North Farish Street) will hold weekly meetings to discuss and organize around the newly published Long Term Strategic Plan for Black America. For more information contact Asinia Lukata Chikuyu at afrikan_tbt@yahoo.com.

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The first Tuesday of each month, from 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., at the Capital Club, Women for Progress of Mississippi, Inc., will host its monthly Lunch and Learn, featuring various women in impactful leadership in the city and around the country. For more information, contact mail@womenforprogress.net.

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Every Wednesday from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m., Dependable Source Corp. Center for Community & Workforce Development, which is a black woman-owned business, hosts The Working Woman Report, which is a live podcast that curates conversations on a variety of topics with professional women. Y’all can join the conversation here, and for more information contact Willie Jones, owner and CEO of Dependable Source Corp at williejones@drivingyourfuturems.com.

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Every Friday from 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m., Refill Jackson—a nonprofit designed to equip young adults ages 18 – 24 with the skills needed to enter the workforce and be self-sufficient—holds its Friday Forums, which are at 136 S. Adams Street Jackson, MS 39203. For more information, contact Nicole McNamee at nmcnamee72@gmail.com or visit their website here.

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The first Friday of each month, at 8:00 p.m. at The Event Center (716 S Gallatin Street), Spoken Soul Open Mic holds its monthly open mic readings and performances. Hosted by Queen Speaks, the cost is $10. All poets and performers welcomed. For more information, contact Erica Garrett at ericamvsu03@gmail.com or (601) 500-3502.

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The first Saturday of each month, the Mississippi Museum of Art will begin its Access for All: Free First Saturdays. For more information, go here.

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The first Saturday of each month, from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., The Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience (The MAX) will host, Earth’s Bounty at the Max, which is held the first Saturday of every month and features:

8:00 – noon: Earth’s Bounty Farmers Market + Live Music

9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.: Free admission to The MAX

11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.: Art activities in upstairs classroom

To register and to learn about vending opportunities, go here.

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The second and fourth Saturday of each month, Dr. RaShell Smith-Spears (rashell.spears@jsums.edu) and Dr. Shanna Smith (shanna.l.smith@jsums.edu) coordinate a creative writing workshop that meets via Zoom. That group has been meeting for almost ten years now, and many of the works developed in that workshop have been published. In fact, I’ve had at least four works that I had workshopped by the group to be published later.

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Two Saturdays a month, Afrikan Art Gallery will host a program, Freedom School Saturdays, for middle and high school students that is modeled after the 1964 Freedom Summer/School Project. The mission is to will help with the intellectual empowerment of our children with course in Civics 101, A Meeting with the Elders: What to Expect in Life, Spiritual Pilgrimage to the Mississippi Delta, Spiritual Pilgrimage to Africatown, AL, photo-journalism exercises, cultural expressions and performances for Black-centered events through their Speech - Choir and Afrikan Cultural Pride Dance Troupe, financial literacy workshops, and so much more. For more information, contact Asinia Lukata Chikuyu at afrikan_tbt@yahoo.com.

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Every Saturday, noted Prince scholar and NYU Professor De Angela Duff is beginning another Prince project, What Did Prince Do This Week?, a very, very, very slow read of Duane Tudahl’s entire Prince Studio Sessions book series through an interactive, online, weekly book club web series. Professor Duff will be live via Streamyard video every Saturday at noon ET on YouTube and Facebook to discuss the parallel week, beginning in 1983. The weekly discussion will be recorded if y’all cannot attend the livestream. The first Saturday of the series, Duff was joined by Tudahl, and y’all can watch the recording of the first session here. To get notifications or to join Duff’s listserv, go to

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The last Saturday of every month, from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m., Mississippi Writer’s Guild and Mississippi Songwriter’s Alliance partner for writer’s meeting and workshop at The Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience (The MAX). Whether songwriter, poet, author, all writers are welcome. This is a time for writers to network and write together and have breakout sessions. Every writer is welcome to participate because we inspire each other. For more information, go here.

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Every Sunday from 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., Afrikan Art Gallery & Bookstore (800 North Farish Street) will hold stimulating conversations, robust debates, and strategic action-step planning for an improved lifestyle for Afrikans. These meetings will be facilitated by the Coalition for Economic Empowerment, and for more information contact Jean at (769) 572-7441 and Asinia Lukata Chikuyu at afrikan_tbt@yahoo.com.

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Each Sunday at 5:00 p.m. CST, award-winning novelist Ellen Morris Prewitt, author of In the Name of Mississippi, and Alisha Johnson Perry, children’s book author, social justice advocate, and certified fundraising executive, have joined forces to establish Contemplative Writing Group. Each week is led by a member of the group. They catch up on their writing week, then the leader offers a contemplative writing prompt. They write for 30 - 40 minutes and share if anyone want. It’s come-and-go/participate when you can and of indefinite duration—as long as folks are getting something from it, the workshop will be offered. To join the group, folks can email the School of Contemplative Living at livingschool12@gmail.com or go here.

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Mississippi-based funnymen Merc B. Williams and Cocky McFly...real-life brothers…have joined forces to create The Vibe Controllers, which is a podcast that shows the two of them in their natural element discussing various topics, with a little humor and lots of sibling banter! Y’all can checkout the podcast via Soundcloud or YouTube at soundcloud.com/thevibecontrollers and The Vibe Controllers Podcast - YouTube.

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The Watering Hole hosts the only Southern writing retreat for poets of color and draws 50 to 60 poets to the retreat each year. The goal is to provide a space and resources for poets of color to develop who they are. They have released their workshop for the remainder of the year, which y’all can see here and here. For more information, visit their website here.

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The Stories of Us: A Genealogy Workshop Series Connecting Generations is a new genealogy workshop series to help descendants and community members of the Tulsa Race Massacre start tracing their roots and reconnecting the threads of their family history. The Stories of Us begins during the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival, when so many will already be back home in Tulsa—remembering, reflecting, and rebuilding. These workshops will be held from May to December, and for more information, go here. These are more than workshops. It’s a step toward reclaiming what was taken and honoring those who came before us. If you have any questions, please contact Justice for Greenwood at WAG@JusticeForGreenwood.org.

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Lolwe is offering masterclasses on multiple creative writing genres and techniques through October. For more details, go here.

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The Center for the Study of Southern Culture has posted its June events in its latest newsletter, which can be read here.

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Each Saturday through June, from 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m., at Kennedy King College, Muntu Dance Theatre will facilitate a Community Class with a certified dance instructor. To register, go here, and for more information, contact info-muntu.com@shared1.ccsend.com and go here.

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The Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience (The MAX) has released its upcoming events for June, which can be viewed here.

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Are you a Mississippi higher education faculty member interested in using digital archiving and the digital humanities research texts and timelines to more effectively, preserve historical and cultural resources, or help students see the subjects you are teaching more clearly? Then join Mississippi Digital Humanities Hub at The University of Southern Mississippi for an expense-paid workshop June 16 – 27, 2025! This free two-week summer residency will be held on the Hattiesburg campus. Workshops will be taught by scholars at the Center for Digital Humanities at Southern Miss and invited experts. These sessions will introduce the basics of collecting and preserving materials (digitization) and the best and least expensive ways to make materials available and understandable using the tools and techniques of the digital humanities. Participants will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience with digital humanities tools that make it easy to collect, analyze, visualize, and map data. A tentative schedule is available on the Hub’s website at www.ms-digital-hub.com/workshop-schedule. Through the support of the National Archives and Records Administration, instructors at Mississippi colleges, universities, and community colleges can attend at no cost, housing and meals are provided, travel costs are reimbursed, and there will be a small stipend. Feel free to share this invitation about the workshop with your colleagues. If we can be a resource to you now or in the future, contact Andrew P. Haley—Associate Professor and Director of the Mississippi Digital Humanities Hub—at Andrew.Haley@usm.edu or (601) 266-4558.

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June 21, 2025, beginning at 1:00 p.m., as part of this summer’s Juneteenth Celebration, Afrikan Art Gallery will host the R. Jess Brown, Jr., Summer Music Camp Finale. This will be followed by a book reading and signing by Walter Simpson, Mississippi’s first black firefighter, and his book, First on the Scene: My Journey through the Fires of Bigotry in Mississippi. For more information, contact Asinia Lukata Chikuyu at afrikan_tbt@yahoo.com, Walter Simpson at (901) 314-7356, or Brother Eddie at (601) 940-2540.

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June 21, 2025, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm CST at the Main Street Cultural Center in Utica, Mississippi, will hold a free introductory workshop this summer to learn more about how to apply for the $25,000 grant to be part of the Rural Routes Design Lab + Studio and connect with fellow artists and organizers. Breakfast, lunch, and necessary materials will be provided during the workshop. The Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture) weaves research, development, and local agriculture with contemporary media and storytelling to promote the legacy and vision of Utica, Mississippi, and the possibility of what all of Mississippi can be. Their place-based model program promotes economic empowerment and self-sufficiency of low- and moderate-income people through education, technical assistance, training, and mentoring in agribusiness. Additionally, it will work with the community to create an advocacy base to lobby and establish increased broadband access in this rural community – a key to sustainable community development in the 21^st century. Rural Routes Design, which is an intensive, cohort-based program that supports selected artists with $25,000 per year, mentorship, and resources to develop and implement their community-transforming design projects over the course of 2.5 years. In the Design Studio cohort, you’ll explore community-driven approaches to addressing local challenges while collaborating and connecting with peers across diverse arts and cultural spaces. The Rural Routes Design Lab will help you gain insights into traditional and innovative community-engaged practices that drive sustainable social change. Join Sipp Culture in Utica to learn, create, and transform your community. To apply, go here.

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June 21, 2025 from noon to 5:00 p.m. EST, Poet, literary scholar, Mississippi native, Jackson State University grad, and Central State University Professor Naykishia Darby will be one of the featured artists at the 2025 Juneteenth Books, Music, and Arts Fair curated by Detroit Book City this summer. For more information and a complete list of artists, go here and here.

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June 21, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. at the Strand Theatre in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in partnership with the Westside Theatre Foundation, the Mississippi Humanities Council will present a fundraiser screening of Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, an award-winning documentary celebrating one of Mississippi’s fiercest voices for justice. The screening will be followed by an unforgettable panel discussion featuring those who knew her best. This event is more than a celebration of history—it is a call to action. Recent federal funding cuts by DOGE have eliminated National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants, jeopardizing vital public programming like this. The MHC is turning to the community to help sustain these enriching initiatives that preserve Mississippi’s diverse stories and foster meaningful dialogue. For more information about the screening and to donate to MHC, go here.

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June 21 – 22, 2025, poet, educator, emcee, and all-around griot Dr. Treasure Shields-Redmond will facilitate multiple events to celebrate Juneteenth. The events will include free 1917 East St Louis Race Massacre tours, an engaging art exhibit, and a powerful panel of living descendants of families impacted by the 1917 East St Louis race massacre. The free tours last about an hour and a half and will be followed by the exhibit and panel at the Sunshine Cultural Arts Center. To register for all events, go here and here, and for more information email Dr. Treasure Shields Redmond at treasure@femininepronoun.com.

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June 22 – 28, 2025, the Jackson State University Margaret Walker Center will facilitate the Catherine Coleman Literary Arts, Food, and Justice Initiative Summer Workshop. MacArthur “Genius” Award Winner Kiese Laymon recently made the announcement about the program named in honor of his grandmother. Originally founded at the University of Mississippi, while Laymon was on the faculty there, the Coleman Program will provide avenues for emerging writers across the state and in the city of Jackson to engage the rich legacy of creative writing in Mississippi, the tradition of southern food ways, and the history of social justice movements in their communities. Layman stated, “We are moving the Initiative to the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State because my grandmama sent all her daughters to Jackson State. This initiative will continue to help young folks in Jackson become the next Danielle Buckingham or Leslie McLemore Jr., two of the greatest young artists in Mississippi.” Laymon, who was among the MacArthur honorees for his work as a writer “bearing witness to the myriad forms of violence that mark the Black experience in formally inventive fiction and nonfiction,” chose to make the announcement following his MacArthur news. The MacArthur scholar noted, “Our hope is to ritualize workshops and incredible food for young folks in our community who might not get a lot of time to write and read ‘creatively.’ We also want young people to consider the creativity that gets food from the land to the table in Mississippi.” Through writing seminars and programming led by Jackson State students and faculty as well as special invited guests, these young people will hone their skills as readers and writers while learning the techniques of revision essential in expressing their voices through the written word. Jackson State Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Alisa Mosley, called it “a phenomenal day,” adding that “Mr. Laymon has been so generous with his time, talent, and respect for Jackson State. There is a season for everything, and I am so grateful for the effort to set these wheels in motion.” Laymon’s investment in Mississippi’s youth mirrors that of his grandmother, who stayed and fought for a better future for the state’s children rather than leave for promises of greater freedom and opportunities through the Great Migration to the North. Laymon even announced that he will match up to $50,000 in donations to the program for the next month. JSU MWA Center Director, Robert Luckett, Ph.D. asserted, “This city and Margaret Walker had major impacts on Kiese’s life and career, and we are so proud that he decided to entrust us with carrying out the momentous work of the Catherine Coleman Literary Arts, Food and Justice Initiative. The incredible honor of being a MacArthur Fellow is so well deserved and will bring great recognition to him and to this program now permanently settled on our campus.” People may make a tax-deductible donation to the Coleman Initiative by visiting the JSU Development Foundation website and selecting the Catherine Coleman Fund under “General Designation.” For more information, contact Dr. Shanna L. Smith at shanna.l.smith@jsums.edu or (601) 979-5870 and Professor Danielle Littlefield at danielle.l.littlefield@jsums.edu or (301) 980-5856.

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June 23, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. EST, Narrative 4 will host an online session for anyone interested in integrating the story exchange and other N4 resources into your classrooms, residence halls, community initiatives, and beyond. Narrative 4 is an organization of creatives that uses storytelling to build community and civic engagement. They have partnered with National Schools Network to curate a national initiative aimed at overcoming the loneliness epidemic by fostering greater social connections between schools. The N4NSN is a community of select schools from across the United States, committed to experiential learning, intentional community, and supporting students and educators through storytelling and the arts. Twice a year, a new group of schools will be admitted to the N4NSN, committing to a 3-month program where they will experience and receive training to facilitate Story Exchanges, participate in an array of community workshops, and utilize Narrative 4 tools and resources in their classrooms. If you’re planning for fall or spring, or interested in brainstorming about what’s possible, register for the session (here).

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June 26, 2025, at 5:00 p.m., at PJ’s Coffee Shop, the Louisiana/Mississippi Branch of the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators will host the Gulf Coast/Biloxi Meeting. (Click for Location >) For Co-Writing, critiques, and other questions, email Alisha Johnson Perry at lamscritgroups@gmail.com

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June 26, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. at Lemuria Books, Mississippi native, arts curator, and entertainment Attorney Kamel King and Mississippi native and media veteran Joe Lee will discuss their book, Jacktown USA: The Capital of American Music, which features several of Mississippi’s current music makers, discussing their influences—the Mississippi musical legends from whom they learned their craft. The theme of paying it forward runs through their stories, as does their love and appreciation for Jackson. It’s a place with a storied history of small clubs and juke joints, a musical destination loaded with creative, resourceful promoters and producers just as eager to see homegrown talent succeed as the artists themselves. For more information about the reading, go here.

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June 26, 2025, at 7:00 p.m., Rooted Magazine Book Club will feature Lauren Rhoades’ Split the Baby: A Memoir in Pieces in an online discussion of her book and its writing process. For more information and to register, go here and here. Rooted is an online magazine dedicated to telling stories of place to people who call Mississippi home. To check out more of Rooted’s great content, go here. Rooted publishes weekly questionnaires with interesting Mississippi transplants, natives, and expats. Their lagniappe issues feature original prose, poetry, art, and photography from Mississippi writers and artists. Y’all can subscribe to the online magazine at rooted.substack.com.

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June 28 – September 7, 2025, Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) will curate the 2025 Mississippi Invitational, which is a biennial exhibition that highlights artists living and working in our state. Guest Curator, TK Smith, chose this year’s artists. Exhibition participants will be eligible to apply for the Jane Crater Hiatt Artist Fellowship—a grant of up to $20,000 to support a single artist’s creative development. For a list of all the invited artists and the dates of their showing, go here.

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The Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture) weaves research, development, and local agriculture with contemporary media and storytelling to promote the legacy and vision of Utica, Mississippi, and the possibility of what all of Mississippi can be. Their place-based model program promotes economic empowerment and self-sufficiency of low- and moderate-income people through education, technical assistance, training, and mentoring in agribusiness. Additionally, it will work with the community to create an advocacy base to lobby and establish increased broadband access in this rural community – a key to sustainable community development in the 21^st century. To develop this work, Sipp Culture is offering grants for Rural Routes Design, which is an intensive, cohort-based program that supports selected artists with $25,000 per year, mentorship, and resources to develop and implement their community-transforming design projects over the course of 2.5 years. In the Design Studio cohort, you'll explore community-driven approaches to addressing local challenges while collaborating and connecting with peers across diverse arts and cultural spaces. The Rural Routes Design Lab will help you gain insights into traditional and innovative community-engaged practices that drive sustainable social change. Join Sipp Culture in Utica to learn, create, and transform your community. They will hold a free introductory workshop this summer to learn more about Rural Routes Design Lab + Studio and connect with fellow artists and organizers. Breakfast, lunch, and necessary materials will be provided during the workshop. For more information, see the calendar of events below. The deadline to apply is June 30, 2025, and to apply, go here.

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ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature has announced a CALL FOR PAPERS for a special issue on “Ambivalent Realisms in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century African and Black Diasporic Writing.” Black literature, across a multitude of geographies and temporalities, has been called upon to represent the “real” – the real lived experience of Black peoples, often under subjugation, in its sorrow and joy– and there has been an expectation that Black writing (from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas) adhere to a realist representation of Black struggle. However, there have always been experimental writers who pushed back against realism’s limits, and this turn away from (or looking beyond) realism has endured into the twenty-first century. ARIEL seeks to engage with the questions of what lies between realism, magical realism, and surrealism – how we might rethink authors’ complex relationships to realism and what concepts we might use to describe the results. They invite literary scholars to draw from a wide-ranging theoretical lens that might bring together studies of formal realism or the history of the novel with anticolonial theory or literary and cultural studies of Africa and its diasporas. Labels like “realism” and “modernism” do not quite capture the syncretic work colonized authors perform because these authors inherited colonial forms and deployed them in the service of independence movements. Similarly, the term “magical realism” can be limiting because of its focus on magic: African and Black diasporic authors disrupt realism in myriad ways that include and do not include the magical. Whether their work is classified as surreal or Afro-surreal, or something else entirely, these authors contend with histories and traumas that exceed realist representation. The deadline to submit is June 30, 2025. For more information and to submit, go here.

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For those people who work at the intersection of community and music, applications are now open nationwide for Levitt Music Series Grants to activate underused public spaces and build community through the power of free, live music. Levitt Music Series Grants are an exciting, multi-year matching grant bringing the joy of free outdoor concerts to towns and cities across the country, creating vibrant, inclusive community destinations. For the 2026 – 2028 grant cycle, the Levitt Foundation will award U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofits up to $40K per year, for a total grant award of up to $120K over three years, to present 7-10 free concerts per year. The deadline to apply is June 30, 2025. For more information and to apply, go here.

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July 1, 2025 at 7:00 p.m., Story Club Pittsburgh (created by the former producers of The Moth Pittsburgh) will host Story Slam, a monthly, themed, nonfiction storytelling series at City of Asylum. (This event will be in-person and livestreamed.) In alignment with City of Asylum’s own values, Story Slam aims to showcase a diverse range of voices, creating a space for stories that resonate across backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. Each month, they select a theme and welcome volunteer and spotlight storytellers to the stage for a charming mix of open mic nights and live theater. The theme for next month is On the Edge. For more information, go here.

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July 24, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. at Lemuria Books, poet and Director of the Mississippi University for Women’s MFA Program Dr. Kendall Dunkelberg will have a reading and signing of his latest collection of poetry, Tree Fall with Birdsong. For more information about the reading, contact kadunkelberg@muw.edu. Additionally, Dunkelberg was recently interviewed about his life as a Mississippi poet and Tree Fall with Birdsong in Rooted Magazine, which y’all can read here with two of his poems from the latest collection here. Finally, for more information about Dunkelberg, go here.

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July 24, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) will present Capital Pictures, a limited engagement film series celebrating the art of great filmmaking in partnership with the Mississippi Film Society. This inaugural series go through the summer with the films of trailblazing director Oscar Micheaux, the first Black American to produce a feature length film. The July film will be Within Our Gates (1920), which tells the story of Sylvia Landry, a young African-American woman goes North to raise money for a rural school in the Deep South. Her romance with a Black doctor eventually leads to revelations about her family’s past and her own mixed-race ancestry. And, the August film will be The Girl from Chicago (1932), in which a federal agent falls in love while on assignment in Mississippi. For more information, go here.

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Narrative 4 is an organization of creatives that uses storytelling to build community and civic engagement. They have partnered with National Schools Network to curate a national initiative aimed at overcoming the loneliness epidemic by fostering greater social connections between schools. The N4NSN is a community of select schools from across the United States, committed to experiential learning, intentional community, and supporting students and educators through storytelling and the arts. Twice a year, a new group of schools will be admitted to the N4NSN, committing to a 3-month program where they will experience and receive training to facilitate Story Exchanges, participate in an array of community workshops, and utilize Narrative 4 tools and resources in their classrooms. The deadline to apply is July 31, 2025. To apply to participate in these series, go here.

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August 14, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) will present Capital Pictures, a limited engagement film series celebrating the art of great filmmaking in partnership with the Mississippi Film Society. This inaugural series go through the summer with the films of trailblazing director Oscar Micheaux, the first Black American to produce a feature length film. The August film will be The Girl from Chicago (1932), in which a federal agent falls in love while on assignment in Mississippi. For more information, go here.

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Through September 7, 2025, Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) will curate the 2025 Mississippi Invitational, which is a biennial exhibition that highlights artists living and working in our state. Guest Curator, TK Smith, chose this year’s artists. Exhibition participants will be eligible to apply for the Jane Crater Hiatt Artist Fellowship—a grant of up to $20,000 to support a single artist’s creative development. For a list of all the invited artists and the dates of their showing, go here.

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September 25 – 28, 2025, The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society, Inc., based in New Orleans, will curate The Faulkner for All Festival. This is The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s most complicated and expensive undertaking, as it embraces multiple disciplines and target audiences and 20 to 30 presenters annually. They attempt to create in a four-day period the kind of nurturing, entertaining, and enlightening environment which inspired writers and their fans who lived during the Bohemian heyday of New Orleans. To see the full schedule of panels and presenters, go here, and to register, go here.

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October 11 – 12, 2025, The Bob Moses Conference will be held in mid-October to celebrate and study the work of legendary Civil Rights activist Bob Moses who was one of the primary strategist for The Movement, especially for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Freedom Summer, Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). We will share program details and event registration in the coming weeks. For more information, go here.

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October 23 – 25, 2025, the 2025 National Black Book Festival will be in Houston this fall. They will be celebrating their 18th anniversary and are looking forward to 2025 being their best year yet! If you’re an author, publisher, or entrepreneur interested in acquiring a vendor table at 2025 NBBF, early bird registration is now open. Registrations are starting at an unprecedented rate, and they are already at 45% capacity. As a result, it’s best to place your table deposit and register as soon as possible. For more information, go here and to register, go here.

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October 23, - 25, 2025, in Detroit, MI, Mississippi native, fiction writer, playwright, and health activist Katrina Byrd will join Kara Laurene Perncano—PhD candidate in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Andrea Cesar, interdisciplinary, movement artist, educator, and activist—in presenting a 60-minute roundtable presentation at the Conference on Community Writing. For more information, go here.

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You are cordially invited to contribute an article or essay to the National Council for Black Studies Annual Report on the State of Affairs for Africana Communities in 2026 and beyond. This report will include short APA-style essays (between 2,000 and 2,500 words, or 8–10 double-spaced pages, including references) on new, emerging, and ongoing current issues and innovations of importance to Africana communities in the U.S. and anywhere in the global African world. NCBS’ mission is to create a space for our discipline to offer historical context, future projections, solutions, and culturally grounded analyses of current needs, concerns, innovations, and ideas of people of African ancestry anywhere in the world. The theme of this call for papers is Roots and Routes of Black Agency: Strategies for Collective Liberation, Memory, and Futurity. NCBS is inviting essays that explore how African/Black communities across the globe are rooting and cultivating themselves in ancestral knowledge, linked future, memory, and historical continuity while charting new routes (scientific, technological, political, spiritual, and educational) for development, advancement, and liberation. We particularly seek papers that demonstrate how the discipline of Black Studies contributes to understanding, sustaining, and advancing these roots and routes. The deadline to submit is November 1, 2025. For more information and to submit, go here.

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