Another wonderful episode of WGN’s Underground last night. Stine is on the run. Rosalee and Noah, too. Earlier in the day, I shared Stephanie Camp’s Closer to Freedom, an amazing monograph on how black women negotiate freedom on plantations, with a grad student. I told her how historians can intuit a lot with even the… Continue reading another great episode of Underground
Tonight I attended the reception for the latest exhibit at the Mildred Westervelt Warner Transportation Museum here in Tuscaloosa. The exhibit features the photography of David Plowden who is known for capturing American landscapes. The photos in this exhibit reflect his fascination with steam locomotives, which were first seen in Great Britain in the early… Continue reading steam locomotive photography captures an era
One of the greatest things since working on the documentary about Grant Green’s life has been seeing his legacy on many things including San Francisco’s Grant Ave and Green Street intersection, which appears on his 1964 “Street of Dreams” album for Blue Note Records. Reid Miles designed the album cover. He made the coolest covers… Continue reading california love
Just returned home – and in a hurry so as to avoid the A-Day traffic – from the “Black/White Intimacies: Reimagining History, the South, and the Western Hemisphere” symposium in Hotel Capstone at the University of Alabama. It was so wonderful listening to scholars address the difficult issue of intimacy and race. The program is… Continue reading intimacies conference a success
If I told you I was walking on sunshine, would you believe me? Reason: I can see the end of the road for this semester. One reason why I can see it is because I always team-teach the Civil War with my senior colleague and partner John Beeler at the end of the semester. Today,… Continue reading musings
I am a preacher’s kid. So every year when Easter rolls around, I feel a certain bit of guilt if I am not in a church. I have been in Tuscaloosa for almost six years and I have yet to find what is known as a “church home.” I am essentially one of those “once… Continue reading coloring eggs and memory
“the most important thing is that I had a purpose….”- Harriet Tubman I am watching the encore of WGN’s “Underground.” It is the best show on television now. I leave the classroom talking about those critical years approaching the Civil War. I come home to this wonderful show. And in between? In between I had… Continue reading using art to ponder ideas about race
I’m back home from the Organization of American Historians (OAH) meeting in New Orleans. It was great seeing old friends and meeting possibly new ones. Among the highlights: -hearing the many ways to approach historian John Blassingame’s early 1970s seminal study on the “slave” community at an off-site facility. I had a live tweet moment… Continue reading musings
While waiting out this second tornado watch, and after doing some busy work this morning, I rewarded myself with time in the veggie garden. Tomorrow? I will pay dearly. I will ache. This is better than lifting weights in the Student Rec Center. For now, I feel virtuous. I am my grandmama’s chile. I miss… Continue reading a time to plant…
One of the great things about the journey toward seeing “The Grant Green Story” to the marketplace is hearing feedback on the film. Since the Friday screening here at UA, and dating back to feedback heard elsewhere including a private screening for friends in my home and the Harlem International Film Festival last fall, I… Continue reading feedback on the film
catalogue 