“White” hall,
The whitening of my hometown. The fields surrounding my junior high, Rosemore, were filled with cheers from the ball fields and a nearby elementary guaranteed delighted squeals and shouts on almost any given day. During the school year each junior high student had to run the perimeter of the property, a timed torturous endeavor known…
The Tipping Point
It was a little cloudy but warm. Fifty-four degrees in February was a good start to the day. Towns all over Tennessee were still celebrating the return of her sons from far off battlefields, and welcoming more home every day. However that morning in Columbia, the escalating tension in the air was so heavy Hannah…
The Trail of Consequence
Dick and Anna’s story was a symphony of notes composed through generations. Their children and grandchildren witnessed events that touched the history of our entire nation in ways even they couldn’t have imagined. Sometimes an event is the culmination of a series of people doing the wrong thing, the right thing or both, almost like…
A Spark
“On the night of either the 3d or the 4th of July, a body of one hundred negroes armed themselves in anticipation of a raid of the Ku-Klux, and stationed themselves about the old fortifications near the town [of Columbia].” These words were written in 1868, when the Ku-Klux Klan had waged a war on…
Anna and Ella
The need for humans to emotionally “understand” slavery so often leads to the over interpretation or a complete manifestation of 19th Century emotions by appropriating modern day psychological evaluations. This happens ALL the time. This never works, nor is it in any way logical or fair to the people we are assigning feelings to. By…
A Wicked Balance
Professor Rev. Lex McKissack Human stories are full of joy and pain, often being experienced in tandem. The variations of joy and pain are equally important to the symphony, it is impossible to have one without the other. In fact they enhance each other to create depth and bring to life the emotion of the…
The Next Movement: Freedom
Almira, Madison and Calvin The experiences of black Americans after the Civil war were inconsistent and varied. This is, in great part because the American experience itself was erratic. The transition from three hundred years of enslavement to freedom was perhaps the most chaotic transition in the history of our country. No one knew how…
Not About Josie,but still a good story, REALLY good!
Dick and Anna McKissack One of the beautiful parts of my job is discovering the symphony of each family and connecting that family to our collective American narrative. Following the details as they come together note by note, each detail, every experience falling exactly where it needed to be to create a unique family story.…
Josie’s Best Friend’s Husband’s First Wife’s Father…
…Washington Spradling, 1802-1868 I’ve said it before, researching an individual isn’t as simple as vital statistics and census records. People leave bits of their story with everyone in their life just by living. Josie had so many wonderful people in her life who became a part of her journey. They lived and breathed the same…
Mrs. Mary E. Thomas
…aka…Black Mary…aka…Territorial Temptress Josie’s baby sister, Mary English Thomas, was an absolute surprise to find and has been surprising me with the depth of her life ever since. Two women, sisters, with so many alike aspects to their life, but with SUCH glaring difference as well. Some people might look at the two and see…
Loading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Finding Josie 