Lydia Koltai is a mother, an herbalist and a civil rights activist in Oxford Mississippi. She is active in a local movement to remove a Confederate statue from the lawn of the local courthouse. “I’m a pretty loving person. I really want to love everybody and understand where people are coming from. What is upsetting is when it feels like people can’t give that back … Continue reading Lydia Koltai
My heart is heavy. It’s the news. It’s the trial in our home town for the death of George Floyd. It’s Daunte Wright. It’s Atlanta. Kenosha. Indianapolis. It’s gathering stories under the shadow of a Confederate statue. It’s visiting lynching sites. But it’s more than that. It’s how quickly each event is spun and re-spun, then spun again. It’s how animosity instantly takes root in … Continue reading Grief
A Peace of My Mind visited Oxford, Mississippi’s country courthouse, where a contested Confederate statue stands at the center of the town square. We asked people, “What does this statue mean to you?” Over two afternoons, 36 people chose to participate and these are the stories they shared. Continue reading Oxford, Mississippi
Last week we set up a temporary studio and asked students at Rutgers University – Camden to respond to the following prompt: “Tell me a time when someone reached across a divide to build or heal a relationship with you.” Some of the responses are below. You can find the full collection on our Facebook page. Continue reading Rutgers University – Camden
When I met Myron Pourier at his home on the Pine Ridge Reservation last summer, he was working to change the name of Harney Peak to Black Elk Peak. Myron is the great great grandson of Black Elk, and saw this effort as a symbolic step toward reconciliation. Just an hour ago, as I was doing final revisions on the book that Myron’s story is … Continue reading Black Elk Peak
**Note** I remember on 9/11 I had a job photographing corporate headshots for a construction company. It was a full schedule, and the most surreal day I can recall as little snippets of the news filtered in. There was a weight in the air at the loss of life, yet they wanted to continue with the project, so I spent my day asking people to … Continue reading Don’t run
A continuing series from the Sojourners Summit for Change last week. To learn more about this series, click here. Continue reading From the Summit
You can learn more about this series by reading the previous two posts. You can learn more about life by reading these six short stories. Thanks again to all who shared. Continue reading Summit Stories
Angela Bates is the director of the historical society in Nicodemus, Kansas, a town that was settled by freed slaves after the Civil War in an effort to experience real freedom. All of the current 16 residents, including Angela, are direct descendants of those original settlers. It is the only remaining all-Black town west of the Mississippi. Angela sees herself as a descendant of people … Continue reading Angela Bates
