A quarterly literary magazine dedicated to featuring the complexity and vitality of the South. For more information, visit OxfordAmerican.org.
The Oxford American is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization and national magazine dedicated to featuring the very best in Southern writing, while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Billed as “A Magazine of the South,” it has won four National Magazine Awards and other high honors since it began publication in 1992. The magazine has featured the original work of such
literary powerhouses as Charles Portis, Roy Blount, Jr., ZZ Packer, Donald Harington, Donna Tartt, Ernest J. Gaines, and many other distinguished authors, while also discovering and launching the most promising writers in the region. In 2007, The New York Times stated that the Oxford American “may be the liveliest literary magazine in America.” The Oxford American is committed to the development of young individuals aspiring to work in the publishing industry, and to the production and presentation of multidisciplinary arts events in and around Little Rock, Arkansas. The Oxford American is published from the University of Central Arkansas.
As we await the Memphis Music Issue, we’re revisiting this piece by contributing editor John Jeremiah Sullivan about Chris Bell, the “other genius” in Memphis power pop outfit Big Star. “The story of Christopher Bell... is tragic. It is also, in other ways, quintessential.”
Read “That Don’t Get Him Back” from Issue 45 at the link below.
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-45-april-2003/that-don-t-get-him-back-again
Photo by David Bell
This week marked the beginning of , a time to honor and celebrate the achievements, histories, traditions, diversity, and vibrant culture of Hispanic and Latino Americans.
Sandra A. Gutierrez, in her award-winning piece “A Voice from the Nuevo South,” explores the evolving nature of Southern-Latino cuisine and culture.
“What we might be at risk to forget, though, is that the New Southern-Latino Movement was not born in academia or acclaimed restaurants. It was an organic crosspollination in which Latino and Southern home cooks, finding themselves in the same territory—and with similar cooking techniques and ingredients—had begun to adapt and create recipes that married their cultures.”
Read the full article at: https://oxfordamerican.org/web-only/a-voice-from-the-nuevo-south
Image © Kim Jenkins
🎵 ONE WEEK COUNTDOWN! 🎵
The No Tears Project Jackson residency is almost here!
Join us in Jackson, MS on September 27-29 for a weekend of free music and community events, presented in partnership with the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument. Thanks to the National Park Foundation’s program, and South Arts’s for making this possible!
Schedule:
No Tears Project Jackson: Sock Hop Dance Party & Freedom Library
🎸 Family-friendly fun with dancing & stories
📚 Special reading by author Nadia Salomon
🎈 Live music by No Tears Project and JSU African Drum and Dance Ensemble
🗳️ Voter registration by One Voice
No Tears Project Jackson: FREE CONCERT
🎼 Free concert at Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church
🎼World premiere of new music inspired by the Evers Family and written by Rodney Jordan, JSU alum and Florida State University Jazz Studies Chair
🎟️ Reserve your free tickets now - limited seating! https://notearsjackson.eventbrite.com/
We Have Overcome: A Conversation on Progress and the Path Forward
🎙️ Pre-recorded at the Evers Home National Monument, join us for a discussion with civil rights advocates, moderated by Dr. Ebony Lumumba, Associate Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages at Jackson State University.
Don't miss this incredible celebration of music, history, and community! Find more info and get your tickets at NoTearsProject.com
Thanks to the National Park Foundation’s program and South Arts’s , along with our community partners Mississippi NAACP, Mississippi Book Festival, Penguin Random House, Central MS Blues Society, Inc., and those mentioned above for making this possible!
Immerse yourself in a world of literature at the 2024 Six Bridges Book Festival!
Presented by the Central Arkansas Library System, September 22-29, the Fest offers something for everyone from thought-provoking sessions and workshops and the pie contest at The Root to Little Readers Rock with the Junior League of Little Rock. Connect with authors, discover new stories, and celebrate the power of words at Arkansas's premier literary event!
Sponsored in part by the Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Register for sessions at https://cals.org/six-bridges-book-festival/.
“The summer Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert finalized their divorce and a couple of months before I got fired from Jimmy John’s, I was complaining about the hoagie rolls to my co-worker and almost-lover, Billy.”
— in a captivating debut fiction piece for our Fall 2024 issue, Josie Tolin tells the story of a rural Jewish girl who finds her strength through women's country music and the absurdity of her mundane life. Read “Freezer Songs” at the link below or in your copy of our latest Southern Lit Issue!
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-126-fall-2024/freezer-songs
Art: Piano Chesterfield Dreams, 2021, by Tim Sandow. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Droste
Fortune favors the bold…and the musically inclined! 🔮🎸
Our new Memphis Music Issue tee is a must-have for any music lover!
Featuring stunning artwork from La Panthère Studio’s Rhythm & Soul Tarot by Stacey Williams-Ng and screen-printed by our friends at Electric Ghost in Little Rock, AR, this limited-edition tee is the perfect way to celebrate our 26th annual Southern Music Issue and LP! ✨
Shop OA Goods to pre-order today, your future self with thank you! 🎶
We are deeply saddened to hear that artist Nall Hollis has passed away at the age of 76. Earlier this year, we were privileged to publish an essay by former OA assistant editor Anna Venarchik, who journeyed to meet Nall and chat about his connection with James Baldwin.
“He said softly that he had loved and been loved by so many people. He’d had a fabulous life. He didn’t know why.
‘Biscuit knows,’ [Nall] whispered. ‘We can consult him if you want to.’
I grinned, watching Biscuit twist over for a belly rub as Nall reached toward him.”
We invite you to take a moment to remember Nall and his extraordinary legacy, or perhaps encounter him for the first time, in “The Persistence of Memory” from Issue #125.
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-125-summer-2024/the-persistence-of-memory
Photographs: Mark Moseley via Encyclopedia of Alabama; Nall Studio Museum/Nall Foundation, Fairhope, Alabama.
The provocative portraits and striking cityscapes of Tamara Reynolds’s series “The Drake” documents with arresting clarity the community in and around the Drake Motel in Nashville, Tennessee.
View more of this 2019 Eyes on the South feature at: https://oxfordamerican.org/eyes/on-the-margins
“When I walked into Marshall’s Music and Bookstore in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, for the first time as an adult, I recovered a warmth I hadn’t even realized I’d lost.”
—for our Fall 2024 Southern Lit issue, Adria R Walker visits Marshall’s, a Black-owned bookstore that’s been in operation in Jackson, Mississippi, since 1938.
Take a journey down Farish Street in “A Walk With Ancestors” at the link below or in your copy of Issue #126!
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-126-fall-2024/a-walk-with-ancestors
Photos: 1. Maati Jone Primm, owner of Marshall’s Music and Bookstore, Farish Street, Jackson, MS; 2. Photograph of Marshall’s Music and Bookstore © Shelley Justiss, adroitimages.com.
From the rich history of jazz to a perfect slice of homemade pie, Missouri is filled with must-see destinations for any taste.
Find your M-O at VisitMo.com.
Happy Birthday to Minnijean Brown, one of the Little Rock Nine, who is 83 years young today!
Have an extra piece of cake for us!
Photo courtesy of Isaiah Trickey Photography.
“Landlocked, she imagined the Pacific’s cursive blue waves // as she read letters of submarine gossip. Those days, she found / my father handsome with stars on his chest and waves // of night-black hair.“
— Vivian Blair Hobbs, “A Ghazal for My Mother,” Issue #109/110
Read here: https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-109-110-summer-fall-2020/a-ghazal-for-my-mother
Photo: “Laurel, Lake Travis,” by Lily Brooks, from the series “We Have to Count the Clouds”
Fresh produce, fresh fiction, and a side of cheese! 🧀🍅
We’re curious—what does your look like? Share your photos and tag us to be featured! 📚
Need to grab a copy of Issue #126? Shop here: https://ow.ly/wY7V50TksZj
Photo: inanalliway / IG
Earlier this year, contributing editor Zandria F. Robinson offered a poignant meditation on Tyre DeAndre Nichols: his life, his spirit, his gruesome death, his family, and “the burning left in the rest of us.”
“They have stolen our capacity to see what came next. But we still witness, speculate about and imagine what it would have been here on earth. And when he throws open the red curtain, we peek into the parallel world where Tyre skates through his fantastic afterlife.”
This story was co-published with MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit news outlet with the mission to report on the intersection of poverty, power, and policy. Read more at: oxfordamerican.org/web-only/tyre-nichols-had-a-beautiful-life
Photos by Andrea Morales for MLK50
Photographed by Ron Jude from 1990-1992, Nausea is set in public schools in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Atlanta, Georgia. Named for Sartre’s 1938 existentialist novel, these photographs make us “conscious of the perils of our own gaze, and the uncertainty inherent in the act of looking.”
Ultimately, Jude uses these mundane scenes and objects as “a means to explore the limitations of narrative photography and consciousness.” View more at the link below.
https://oxfordamerican.org/eyes/institutional-learning
✨ GIVEAWAY 📚✨
We’ve teamed up with the Mississippi Book Festival to give YOU the chance to win the ultimate signed book bundle!
Featuring titles by 2024 Festival panelists and OA contributors:
Eli Cranor - Broiler
Beth Ann Fennelly - Heating and Cooling
Tom Franklin - Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Major Jackson - Razzle Dazzle
Mary Miller - Biloxi
Aimee Nezhukumatathil - Bite By Bite
Ann Patchett - Tom Lake
Jamie Quatro - Two-Step Devil
M.O. Walsh - The Big Door Prize
Jesmyn Ward - Let Us Descend
Crystal Wilkinson - Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts
Here’s your chance to own books from some of the South’s most celebrated authors! Enter to win:
https://signup.e2ma.net/signup/2004586/35054/
Best of luck, and we hope to see you at the Mississippi Book Festival on September 14 in Jackson!
Maury Gortemiller’s work “Do the Priest in Different Voices” shows us familiar scenes from an unfamiliar viewpoint. The images in this series blend the icons of Christian epiphany and mysticism with mundane objects from our everyday experience, changing the backdrops of one thousand year old stories to this century in a distinctly American setting.
View more at the link below:
https://oxfordamerican.org/eyes/in-different-voices
Dancer Ashley Tate will be performing alongside the No Tears Project ensemble once again in Jackson, MS!
Join us at the “No Tears Project Jackson” residency presented in partnership with Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument. Made possible by the National Park Foundation program, and , a national initiative of South Arts.
Save the date for September 27-29 to witness this inspiring series of free music and community events:
No Tears Project Jackson: Sock Hop Dance Party & Freedom Library
No Tears Project Jackson: FREE CONCERT
We Have Overcome: A Conversation on Progress and the Path Forward
No Tears Project is a jazz-inflected collective led by vocalist Kelley Hurt, and pianist Christopher Parker. The Jackson residency will include the premiere of new compositions by Rodney Jordan, inspired by the Evers family. Plus, our friends at One Voice will be on site to provide voter registration services.
Find tickets and more information at: https://oxfordamerican.org/notearsproject/jackson2024
Special thanks to community partners the Mississippi NAACP, Central MS Blues Society, Inc., 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.
An upcoming event for the folks in central Arkansas! Get your tickets at: https://my.arkmfa.org/10225/11324
Join us on September 25 as we welcome Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize and National Humanities Medal-winner, and the New York Times bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
She will join our Superintendent, Robin White, for a special evening as part of the 67th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine.
The event will be at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts; free tickets are available with advance registration at the link in our bio.
Ms. Wilkerson’s appearance is presented by Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, in partnership with the City of Little Rock, Jefferson National Parks Association, Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, and the Central Arkansas Library System. For more information on Ms. Wilkerson, please visit www.prhspeakers.com
American composer and music theorist John Milton Cage Jr. was born on this day in 1912.
For Issue #103, John Thomason wrote about Cage’s experiences at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, which closed in 1956 “after twenty-four years of educational experimentation and financial struggle.”
“Upon finally arriving on campus, Cage was so inspired that he decided to stage an early debut of the new piece, which would come to be considered the pinnacle of his work in the percussive ‘prepared piano’ style.”
Read more about Cage and his work in “Black Mountain Music” at the link below:
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-103-winter-2018/black-mountain-music
📷 Rob Bogaerts / Anefo via Wikimedia Commons.
🎨 “Black Mountain, Lake Eden” (1954), by Joseph Fiore, Asheville Art Museum.
Happy Newsstand Day! Our Fall 2024 Southern Lit Issue is here, offering a literary feast of new stories that resonate and linger. 🍂 Explore themes of loneliness, legacy, lost innocence, and chance encounters in Issue #126, available now at your local bookstore or on OA Goods!
Shop now: https://www.oxfordamericangoods.org/collections/good-reading/products/issue-126-southern-lit-issue
Have you already received your copy as a subscriber? We’d love to see how you're enjoying it this autumn! Share photos of yourself with the magazine or capture creative shots of the issue in your coziest fall reading spots. Tag us on social media or use the hashtag for a chance to be featured!
Cover Image: Scene from Alligator (1980) (detail), 2019, by Thomas Deaton LeMieux Galleries, New Orleans. Deaton's work will be on view from November 2 to February 2, in the exhibition Prospect.6: The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home, for Prospect New Orleans.
From the soulful history of the blues to international cuisine and traditions, explore entertainment and dining of all kinds at Missouri’s many must-see destinations. Find your M-O at VisitMo.com.
While our team takes the day to rest and rejuvenate, we invite you to revisit a feature from last year’s Fall Film Issue, in which Kit Duckworth unravels the 1979 classic “Norma Rae” through the lens of her North Carolina heritage, highlighting the significant roles of women in the textile industry and the fight for unionization.
“If industry once provided some semblance of community, and thus solidarity, then how can an atomized South knit itself together again?”
📷 20th Century Studios, courtesy of Everett Collection
Read here: https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-122-fall-2023/unspooling-norma-rae
Smooth, Like Criminal, 2017, acrylic, house paint, and archival ballpoint pen on concrete. By Raul Rene Gonzalez, Courtesy grayDUCK Gallery.
Artist Raul Rene Gonzalez speaks candidly about finding inspiration in labor and domestic life in an interview with Michelle García from the Spring 2024 Southern Art Issue. Explore their conversation at the link below: https://oxfordamerican.org/.../the-mythic-and-the-everyday
In 2018, Wiley Cash wrote about Ella Mae Wiggins, the North Carolina textile worker who composed “Mill Mother’s Lament” for the 1929 Loray Mill strike. Cash writes that the song “still calls us to action nearly one hundred years later.”
This Labor Day Weekend, revisit this feature online or in your copy of issue #103.
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-103-winter-2018/mill-mother-s-lament
📷 Workers confront the National Guard during the Loray Mill Strike, 1929
“Last Labor Day weekend, the waters of the Atchafalaya ran so uncommonly low that someone in Morgan City, Louisiana, was able to walk into the middle of the river and plant a Trump flag firmly into its sandy bed. The next day, the flag was still flying as boats decorated with crepe paper and streamers lined up for the Blessing of the Fleet, the culminating event of the town’s annual Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival.”
—from Jeanie Riess’s essay, “Nothing Stays the Same,” about climate change in the Gulf and the decline of the Louisiana sh*****ng industry.
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-108/nothing-stays-the-same
by J.T. Blatty from the book Fish Town: Down the Road from Louisiana’s Vanishing Fishing Communities
Shop our Labor Day sale and enjoy 15% off apparel, posters, and more. No discount code needed!
"But those who were born and raised on this land understand that the South is not a void of progress. It is, more so, a land of separations and divine transitions." - Adia Victoria, for the Greatest Hits Music Issue in 2020. Revisit her curated playlist and reflections on Southern sacred music in “Not in this Life” at the link below:
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-111-winter-2020/not-in-this-life
⏰ less than 48 hours left to make a difference! Donate $100+ and you could be the curator of your own Oxford American playlist, featured in our 2024 Memphis Music Issue.
Your selection could be the bridge between yesterday's legends and tomorrow's pioneers.
▶️ Handpick 10-15 tracks
▶️ Be featured on our Spotify channel
▶️ Get your name and playlist QR code published
▶️ Receive two contributor copies of the print issue
As a nonprofit, Oxford American relies on the generous support of those who believe in the transformative power of Southern stories. Help us keep sharing them—because the South's story is still being written, and with your support, we can ensure it's told with depth, nuance, and heart for generations to come.
Visit https://ow.ly/NOIw50TajjQ to support our mission and enter for a chance to win big!
Illustration by Three Ring Studio
The No Tears Project, a powerful jazz collective formed in 2017 by vocalist Kelley Hurt and pianist Christopher Parker, began with the creation of the “No Tears Suite,” a musical tribute commissioned by Oxford American to honor the Little Rock Nine. Over the years, No Tears has evolved into a touring group and outreach program that uses music to spark conversations about social equality and healing within communities.
Kelley Hurt, a Memphis native and recipient of the Phillips Award for Best New Artist, has an impressive background, having toured with legends like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Joe Walsh, and the North Mississippi All-Stars. Arkansas-born pianist Christopher Parker has performed with a wide range of artists, from jazz greats to blues musicians, showcasing his talent on over 20 albums.
Mark your calendars for the upcoming No Tears Project Jackson Residency in Jackson, MS, September 27-29, 2024, in partnership with the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument.
Bassist and composer Rodney Jordan will debut new music inspired by the Evers Family, making this event one you won’t want to miss!
https://oxfordamerican.org/notearsproject/jackson2024
Little Rock, AR
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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.
Preorder today! Our Memphis Music Issue and limited-edition vinyl pay homage to Bluff City’s enduring and evolving influence on American sound. Explore the rich history and vibrant present of Memphis music when you secure your copy today at: OxfordAmericanGoods.org/products/memphis-music-issue-1
Get ready, Central Arkansas! Memphis is coming to you on June 6th! 🎉🎶 Join us for OA Presents: Memphis Music Revue at UCA's Windgate Center in Conway THIS Thursday! Experience the magic with: ✨ Stax Museum of American Soul Music Soul Mobile – A traveling exhibit, gift shop, and DJ booth! 🎤 Talibah Safiya – Memphis-based artist with her latest record Black Magic, created in collaboration with the University of Memphis’s School of Music Business where she served as Artist in Residence. 🎷 The 926: Stax Music Academy Alumni Band – Talented graduates from the world-renowned Stax Music Academy! This event is completely free, but you’ll need tickets for the concert and seats are filling up! Snag yours now: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36631/performance/11473022
You are not gonna want to miss this! the OA is bringing Memphis tunes to Central Arkansas on June 6! Reserve your tickets today at: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36631/performance/11473022
Get on-the-ground and in the dirt this summer with the Outside Issue! Order your copy today at OxfordAmericanGoods.org.
This Earth Day, pre-order your copy of the upcoming Outside Issue, dedicated to the outdoors of our Southern states and to the environmental experiences of our people! The Summer 2024 issue will feature a new essay from Tauheed Rahim II centered around a struggle to retain his family’s land in North Memphis. Rahim is a Memphis-raised Muslim hip-hop artist and screenwriter who uses his southern consciousness to examine the gothic, intergenerational legacies and American work culture. Order here: https://www.oxfordamericangoods.org/collections/good-reading/products/summer-2024-outside-issue
Arkansas's own William Whitworth passed away on Friday, March 8th at the age of 87. Whitworth leaves a legacy of precision in language and an indelible mark on the literary world through his tenure of editorship at the New Yorker and the Atlantic. We invite you to revisit this feature from 2019, in which Whitworth regales Maxwell George with his recollections of moving to New York City and meeting the legendary Dizzy Gillespie. https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-107/i-remember-his-sweetness In 2011, Whitworth joined the OA as a featured guest at the Oxford American Summit for Ambitious Writers, where he discussed his career and passion for writing and editing (as well as an early affinity for magazines!). You can see the full interview at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFbvuYCgWEc
“Crafting a well-produced print magazine in the current media climate can often feel like running up a steep hill. And yet, I’m proud that we have fashioned, over the past few years and multiple forms of media, a body of work that has chronicled and illuminated the Black roots, and future, of country.” — OA Editor Danielle Amir Jackson on the newest web feature at OxfordAmerican.org. Check it out here: https://oxfordamerican.org/web-only/black-country-a-love-letter-and-living-archive
Join producer Christian Leus for part two of our story about Mitchellville, Arkansas, as she explores the history and legacy of the Mitchellville Self-Help Project, led by Daisy Bates. This episode is supported by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Listen now wherever you get your podcast or online at: https://oxfordamerican.org/pointssouth
We're thrilled to announce a NEW episode of Points South that shines a light on Mitchellville, Arkansas—a small, yet profoundly significant Black town with a story seldom told. This episode, produced by the talented trio of Sara A. Lewis, Christian Leus, and Zandria F. Robinson, embarks on a captivating exploration of Mitchellville's foundations and its unique identity as a Black town starting with a civic improvement project in the 1960s led by civil rights icon Daisy Bates. This is the first installment of a riveting two-part series. This episode is supported by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Listen now online or wherever you listen to podcasts! https://oxfordamerican.org/pointssouth/episodes/foundations-of-a-black-town
Have you checked out the newest episode of Points South Live? We partnered with Visit Macon to honor the legacy of one of the South's greatest balladeers, Otis Redding, in celebration of our 25th Annual Southern Music Issue! After a conversation with Karla Redding Andrews and Justin Andrews of the Otis Redding Foundation, the Macon Music Revue takes center stage. Charles Davis's powerhouse vocals weave an array of ballads that celebrate Georgia’s rich musical tapestry. Listen to that performance online or wherever you get your podcasts! https://oxfordamerican.org/pointssouth/episodes/points-south-live-otis-redding-foundation-and-macon-music-revue Thank you to our sponsors: Visit Macon, Moon Hanger Group, Grant’s Lounge, The Creek 100.9 FM, and Hotel 45. Special thanks to Lisa Love with the Georgia Music Foundation and Marissa Rogers with Visit Macon.
Otis Redding's soulful spirit lives on in Macon, GA! For this special episode of Points South Live, our friends at Visit Macon invite the OA’s Ashley Clayborn to the historic Grant's Lounge for a chat with Karla Redding Andrews & Justin Andrews about the Otis Redding Foundation and the legendary balladeer himself. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how Otis's daughter and grandson are still carrying on his legacy to this day. Listen to that conversation online or wherever you get your podcasts, followed by a stunning performance by the Macon Music Revue! https://oxfordamerican.org/pointssouth/episodes/points-south-live-otis-redding-foundation-and-macon-music-revue Thank you to our sponsors: Visit Macon, Moon Hanger Group, Grant’s Lounge, The Creek 100.9 FM, and Hotel 45. Special thanks to Lisa Love with the Georgia Music Foundation and Marissa Rogers with Visit Macon.
In Episode 11 (Season 3) of Points South, join us on Hilton Head and St. Helena, two more islands where the promises of Reconstruction blossomed into independent, self-sufficient communities of formerly enslaved people. In this two-part episode, producer Sara A. Lewis visits the South Carolina Sea Islands, where the triumphs and tragedies of Reconstruction have left a unique legacy. Check out Episode 10 for Part I. You can listen to the episode on our website or wherever you get podcasts! https://oxfordamerican.org/pointssouth/episodes/wade-in-the-water Image by Henry P. Moore, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Oxford American’s Points South podcast: Episode 8
“That’s heartbreak that has generational ripples.” — Chris Barr, Chief of Interpretation at the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in Beaufort, South Carolina, in Episode 10 (Season 3) of Points South. This is the first of two parts, where producer Sara A. Lewis visits the South Carolina Sea Islands, where formerly enslaved people owned land, built schools, and created prosperous communities all before the Emancipation Proclamation. You can listen to the episode on our website or wherever you get podcasts! https://oxfordamerican.org/pointssouth/episodes/nobody-knows-the-trouble This episode was produced by Sara A. Lewis, Christian Leus, and Christian Brown, with Dr. Kidada Williams. This episode is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the African American History Commission. Image: “Fripp Place, St. Helena Is., S.C.” Hubbard & Mix, 1863, via Library of Congress #pointssouth #ofthesouth #gullahgeechee #podcast #BeaufortSC #beaufort #beaufortsc
Crave stories more complex than your run-of-the-mill social media feed? Dive into the Oxford American. #ReadOA
The Soul Lounge Recording Studio
Westpark Drive
