Support the OA
Remember that OA feature made you pause? Read it twice. Share it immediately. The one that made you whisper, “well, damn.”
That’s what we do. For 30+ years, we’ve published stories that expand the narrative. The ones that make you see the South, the world, and yourself differently.
Not because it’s easy. Because it’s necessary.
We know you get it. You understand the South isn’t just a punchline or a postcard.
So yeah, this is another #GivingTuesday ask. As a nonprofit, independent publication, we rely on supporters like you.
We are asking you to consider supporting the Oxford American today, so that we can keep publishing these vital stories tomorrow.
Because the Oxford American is still here. Still Southern. Still committed to the art of a good story.
Support the OA today by donating at: https://oxford.app.neoncrm.com/forms/give-2024
No Tears Project (Full Concert Cut) - Live in Jackson, MS
We’re thrilled today to share the full concert video of No Tears Project live in Jackson, MS on 9/28/24, where the band premiered The Medgar Evers Suite, written by Rodney Jordan.
Thanks to Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, One Voice, and Mississippi NAACP for the partnership. We are so grateful for the support of National Park Foundation, South Arts, #JazzRoad, and Visit Jackson, MS helping make this program a success.
Follow No Tears Project on Instagram @parkerhurtnotearsproject and learn more at www.notearsproject.com.
Video by Alumni Broadcasting Association.
Broken Ground podcast | SELC
Check out the new season of Broken Ground, a podcast from SELC uncovering environmental stories across the rural South.
From strip mines to wood-pellet mills, polluting industries are burdening small Southern towns with the hidden costs of consumption.
This season heads to rural communities across our region to uncover their environmental struggles and hear the voices of the people building a better future.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts or online at: https://bit.ly/4dXqPPj
🎉 Celebrating 50 years of music, culture & good times in Lafayette!
🪗 Festivals Acadiens cet Créoles 2024
📍 October 11-13th in Girard Park – Lafayette
#feedyoursoul #explorelouisiana
🎉 Celebrating 50 years of music, culture & good times in Lafayette!
🪗 Festivals Acadiens cet Créoles 2024
📍 October 11-13th in Girard Park – Lafayette
#feedyoursoul #explorelouisiana
Learn more: festivalsacadiens.com
We Have Overcome: A Conversation on Progress and the Path Forward
We Have Overcome: A Conversation on Progress and the Path Forward, was recorded at the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument and features civil rights advocates Hezekiah Watkins, activist and the "youngest Freedom Rider;" Nsombi Lambright, executive director of One Voice and Allytra Perryman, deputy director of the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP. The conversation was moderated by Dr. Ebony Lumumba, Associate Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages at Jackson State University. The panel is part of the September 2024 No Tears Project Jackson residency.
Thanks to the National Park Foundation's #ParkVentures initiative; Jazz Road, a program of South Arts; Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument; Supporting Partner Visit Jackson, MS; and community partners One Voice, the Mississippi NAACP, Central Mississippi Blues Society, Mississippi Book Festival, Penguin Random House, Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church - Ridgeway St., and Jackson State University Department of Music for helping make the Jackson residency possible.
Check out the new season of Broken Ground, a podcast from SELC uncovering environmental stories across the rural South.
From strip mines to wood-pellet mills, polluting industries are burdening small Southern towns with the hidden costs of consumption.
This season heads to rural communities across our region to uncover their environmental struggles and hear the voices of the people building a better future.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts or online at: https://bit.ly/4dXqPPj
The Oxford American was pleased to partner with Gateway Arch National Park and Jazz St. Louis to present Social Change Through the Arts, a panel discussion featuring artists from the No Tears Project St. Louis concerts, including composer/pianist Christopher Parker, vocalist Kelley Hurt, saxophonist/clarinetist and President & CEO of Jazz St. Louis, Victor Goines; choreographer/dancer Ashley Tate, and singer/songwriter Brian Owens. Poet, educator, and community arts organizer Treasure Shields Redmond moderated the panel.
In 2023, dancer Ashley Tate electrified the stage at Jazz St. Louis, improvising with the No Tears Project ensemble during a stunning performance of new music and poetry by Oliver Lake.
This year, we’re excited to bring the powerful experience of the No Tears Project ensemble to Jackson, MS!
📅 Join us from September 27-29, 2024, for the No Tears Project residency presented in partnership with Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument. Made possible by the National Park Foundation #ParkVentures program, and #JazzRoad, a national initiative of South Arts.
Bring your best moves to Myrlie's Garden for a Saturday morning family-friendly sock hop and catch the world premiere of new music by Rodney Jordan that evening!
Find tickets and more information at: https://oxfordamerican.org/notearsproject/jackson2024
Join the ranks of Oxford American’s music curators!
We want to offer something uniquely Oxford American to our donors this year as a huge thank you for your support and for keeping the Southern stories flowing. For the month of August, your $100 donation could win you the chance to create a Memphis playlist for the 26th Annual Southern Music Issue and get your name in print.
Visit OxfordAmerican.org/Give2024 to learn more and donate today!
Sixty years ago, Fannie Lou Hamer, co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), traveled to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) to demand that the MFDP’s delegates, rather than the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party delegates, be seated in the convention.
As the DNC opens in Chicago today ahead of the 2024 election, we recall Hamer’s legacy in the fight for voting rights, that 1964 DNC speech, and her dedication to food sovereignty and cooperative farming—a testament to her holistic vision of freedom.
“Growing up a sharecropper and working under this system into her adulthood, Hamer deeply understood the consequences of this type of intergenerational economic violence,” says journalist Brittany Brown in an episode of Points South, “In the late 1960s, Hamer started a Black farm cooperative and fed and housed people in her community. She provided housing with running water and electricity, then an untapped luxury for so many poor Black workers in the Mississippi Delta.”
Learn more about Hamer’s Freedom Farms at the link below: https://oxfordamerican.org/pointssouth/episodes/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-freedom-farm
Presented with support from our friends at Julia Child Foundation.
“Từ Nước (Of Water): A New Orleans Tết,” is a short film was made in conjunction with “You Always Return: Searching for Viet-Cajun in New Orleans,” a two-part episode of the Oxford American's Points South podcast. Watch chef Nini Nguyễn prepare a traditional feast for the 2023 Lunar New Year with help from her elders and fellow second-generation Vietnamese community members. You can find the full film on our Youtube channel.
Special thanks to The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities for supporting the making of this film.
Film credits:
A film by Marion Hoàng Ngọc Hill (@ma.rion.hill)
Original music by Dylan Trần (@thedylantran)
Community members: Chef Nini Nguyễn, VEGGI farmers’ cooperative, Chùa Bồ Đề Buddhist temple, Hong Kong Market, Sông Cái Distillery, Chú Thiện, Chú Đức.
Barry Hannah in footage shared by John Oliver Hodges, who penned an essay in memory of Hannah for our Spring 2011 Issue #72. Hannah, acclaimed novelist and short story writer, passed away on March 1, 2010. Curious for more? Dive into Hodges’ essay, “The Least Lukewarm Dude You Were Likely to Meet,” on our website. You can find the full video on our Youtube channel.
