Alcorn Prof. J. Janice Coleman to trace the writing of 'A Raisin in the Sun' to the Hansberry Family’s roots in Gloster, Miss., at Feb. 28 meeting of the Natchez Historical Society

Dr. J. Janice Coleman
Professor of English, Alcorn State University

NATCHEZ, Miss. – J. Janice Coleman, professor of English at Alcorn State University, will be the guest speaker at the Natchez Historical Society meeting Tuesday, Feb. 28, at Historical Natchez Foundation, 108 S. Commerce St., Natchez. The program starts at 5:30 p.m. and the presentation at 6 p.m.

The event, which is free to the public, is being presented in recognition of Black History Month.

Coleman will speak on the topic, “The Road to A Raisin in the Sun: The Link Between the Hansberry Family of Gloster, Mississippi, and Alcorn A & M College.” She will trace Lorraine Hansberry’s critically acclaimed play, "A Raisin in the Sun" (1959), to the influence of the cherished home library of her grandfather, Elden Hays Hansberry, of Gloster, Amite County, Mississippi.

“Professor Coleman is an expert in, among other things, the early history of Alcorn in the Reconstruction period as well as American literature, and specifically, ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’” said Alan Wolf, a director of NHS and chairman of its programs.

He said Coleman’s presentation will include “an illustrative quilt of her own creation and other exhibits to help vivify Hansberrys’ life and time in the larger Natchez area and beyond.”

According to Coleman, Hansberry’s grandfather graduated from Alcorn in 1891, and his two sons, William Leo Hansberry and Carl Hansberry, both attended Alcorn for some years before their interests took them to other places.

Dr. J. Janice Coleman

Coleman said she was working as an archivist for ASU’s sesquicentennial celebration when she became interested in what was at the core of Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” “That’s how I got to Gloster, where Elden is buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery,” she said.

Coleman said that her research has implications for students today, especially those at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

“My research shows that anything that students want to accomplish, they can get there from Alcorn State or from any other HBCU,” Coleman said. “William Leo Hansberry once dubbed himself ‘a Mississippi plowboy,’ but he did not allow his former self to get in the way of what he wanted to become.”

Coleman described William Leo as a scholarly man who earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Harvard and became the Father of African Studies.

Carl became a real estate developer in Chicago who brought a case all the way to the Supreme Court that centered on racial discrimination in housing and won,” Coleman said. “Taking what she learned from her uncle’s and her father’s life experiences and teachings, Lorraine wrote ‘A Raisin in the Sun.’”

Hansberry’s play is widely considered a classic of the American theater. According to The Washington Post, “it belongs in the inner circle, along with “Death of a Salesman,” “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” and “The Glass Menagerie.” The New York Times described “A Raisin in the Sun” as “the play that changed American theater forever.”

A native of Mound Bayou, Miss., Coleman is a resident of Vicksburg. Her credentials include a doctorate in English from the University of Mississippi, a Master of Science in secondary education from ASU, a Master of Arts in popular culture from Bowling Green State in Ohio, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from ASU.

 For more information, call 601-492-3004.

 

“The Road to ‘A Raisin in the Sun’: The Link Between the Hansberry Family of Gloster, Mississippi, and Alcorn A & M College"

 

Dr. J. Janice Coleman

I'm happy to announce Dr. J. Janice Coleman, professor of English at Alcorn State University, will speak at the Feb. 28 meeting of the Natchez Historical Society. Program starts with social at 5:30 p.m. and presentation at 6 p.m.

“The Road to ‘A Raisin in the Sun’: The Link Between the Hansberry Family of Gloster, Mississippi, and Alcorn A & M College"
 
Event: “The Road to ‘A Raisin in the Sun’: The Link Between the Hansberry Family of Gloster, Mississippi, and Alcorn A & M College"
 
When: Tue Feb 28th 5:30pm - 8:00pm (CST)
 
Where: Historic Natchez Foundation, 108 South Commerce Street, Natchez, MS 39120, USA
 
Full details at: https://tockify.com/sippevents/detail/3743/1677627000000

#VisitNatchez #BlackHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #RaisinInTheSun #NatchezHistory #NatchezHistoricalSociety

Scott Barretta returning to Natchez to talk about Charles Evers’ Blues Legacy

Scott Barretta

NATCHEZ, Miss. – Blues historian Scott Barretta is returning to Natchez to talk about “Charles Evers’ Blues Legacy” in recognition of Black History Month. He will speak at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, 2023, at Historic Natchez Foundation, 108 S. Commerce St.
 
Barretta will present the same lecture at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 28, in Dumas Hall, Room 107, at the Lorman campus of Alcorn State University. Both events are free to the public. They are sponsored by the Southwest Mississippi Center for Culture & Learning at Alcorn State University.
 
“Charles Evers is deservedly best known for his contributions to the civil rights movement and his political engagement in the state, but I also think it’s important to recognize him as a pioneer in cultural tourism,” said Barretta. “Notably,” he added, “the annual Medgar Evers Homecoming Celebration concert featuring B.B. King and other blues greats, which brought in people from across the country, predated the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival by five years.”
 
Teresa Busby, the center’s executive director, said Barretta’s talk will address the impact Evers had on the public visibility of the blues in Mississippi. Busby said the presentation will also address Evers’ work as a DJ in Philadelphia, Miss., in the 1950s; a nightclub owner in Chicago and Mississippi; and as the owner for many years of a blues-oriented radio station in Jackson.
 
The first major show held by Evers occurred in 1973 at the Mississippi Fairgrounds in Jackson, Barretta said.  Evers recalled he had first visited this site when it was a makeshift jail where hundreds of civil rights activists were locked up, Barretta said.
 
“Now black and white can walk in there together for an evening of singing and dancing,” Evers noted on the first event. “That’s the way Medgar would have wanted it and he died trying to make that kind of joy possible.’”
 
In 1969, Charles Evers became the first African American mayor in Mississippi since the Reconstruction era when he was elected as mayor of Fayette.
 
Barretta’s last visit to Natchez occurred in October when he presented a talk on “Natchez’s Rich Blues Tradition.” A resident of Greenwood, Barretta is well known as the host of the MPB radio show “Highway 61.” He is a writer and researcher for the Mississippi Blues Trail. He also teaches sociology courses about music at the University of Mississippi.
 
For more information, send email to tbusby@alcorn.edu.

#Blues #VisitNatchez #BlackHistory #BlackHistoryMonth

Rare slave document donated to Natchez museum

Item shows sale of enslaved man for $500 to settler of Spanish Natchez

Bobby Dennis, executive director of the Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture, left, and Richard Burke, Mayor Dan Gibson’s executive assistant, display a scanned copy of an 1828 bill of sale involving the sale of a 21-year-old enslaved man. The document was donated to the museum by an anonymous donor.

NATCHEZ, Miss. -- The Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture has acquired a rare 1828 document showing the sale of an enslaved man to an early settler of Spanish Natchez.
 
The document is a bill of sale by slave traders Warren Offutt and Rice Ballard for the sale of a 21-year-old man named, Aaron, whom they sold for $500 to John Henderson of Natchez. It was purchased in January by an anonymous donor, who delivered it to the office of Richard Burke, Mayor Dan Gibson’s executive assistant.
 
The person who gave it to Burke asked him to insure it was donated to the museum. Bobby Dennis, executive director of the museum, said he was both surprised and very pleased with the donation.
 
The document reads as follows:
 
        “Know all men by these presents that we Warren Offutt & Rice Ballard for and in consideration of the sum of five hundred Dollars to us in hand paid by John Henderson of the City of Natches the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged have bargained sold and delivered and by these presents do bargain sell and deliver to the said John Henderson One Negro Man named Aaron about twenty one years of age and we do hereby warrant the said Negro Man as a slave for life to the said John Henderson his heirs and assigns against the legal claim of all and every person or persons whomsoever and do also warran[t] the said Negro Man to be at this time bound in mind and body.

        “In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals at Natches this twenty seventh day of December 1828. 

        Witness: Warren Offutt, R. C. Ballard”
 
David Slay, chief of interpretation for the Natchez National Historical Park, said the document is significant for several reasons.
 
“It documents the existence of a 21-year-old Aaron and the other enslaved people from the McInnis estate, which will be of value to genealogists in that Aaron and the others likely have descendants in this region,” Slay said. He noted this could be a key piece to someone's ancestry search one day.
 
“It is a tangible artifact of the domestic slave trade in this region,” Slay said. “It is a physical object representing the selling of a man's life in Natchez in 1828, who was bound both ‘mind and body’ to John Henderson.”
 
According to the information provided with the document, on the day of the sale, “Henderson advertised an auction of ten slaves in two families from the estate of Norman McInnis of Concordia, Louisiana, to be sold at auction on January 2, 1829.” However, three years later, he penned a letter to a Washington, D.C. newspaper in which he proposed “a method for the gradual abolition of slavery.”
 
 

Natchez church to present play on Natchez Deacons for Defense

Cast will feature writer and director Jamal McCullen and 11 local students

Jamal McCullen, fourth grade English teacher at Susie B. West Elementary School, is the writer and director of “The Natchez Deacons for Defense: A Dramatization.” The play will premiere at 2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 11, at Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church, 607 Madison St.

NATCHEZ, Miss. – A local teacher and 11 students are combining their talents to tell the story of the Natchez Deacons for Defense and Justice, a group that provided armed protection for the Black community during the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

 
Jamal McCullen, a fourth grade English teacher at Susie B. West Elementary School, is the writer and director of “The Natchez Deacons for Defense: A dramatization.” The play will premiere at 2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 11, at Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church, 607 Madison St. It is free and open to the public.
 
The play is presented by the church in concert with the Dr. John Bowman Banks Museum.
“This play is about education,” said McCullen. “It’s an opportunity to learn about an era in our community history where some amazing men stood up and had the courage to do something different than what was being done to move our people forward -- and closer to equality and fair treatment.”

Writer and director Jamal McCullen with the cast of “The Natchez Deacons for Defense: A Dramatization.” Standing from left are Darius Williams, Malachi White, Anthony West, Jamal McCullen, Ashton Williams and Kaimon Shaw.

Cast of students

 
The cast will feature students Anthony West of Cathedral School, Malachi White, who attends Natchez Early College at Co-Lin; and Ashton Williams, Kaimon Shaw, Darius Williams, and Tyler Lyles, who attend Natchez High School. Other cast members include Emmanuel Wilcox of Delta Charter, Kameron Bates of Natchez Freshman Academy, Kortland Harris of Jefferson High School, and Casen Campbell and Ryan Smith of Natchez Middle school.
 
“It is truly an honor to be surrounded by these amazing men and to learn something from them through this program,” said West, 13.
 
Ashton Williams, 18, said the play will be a “good program for young black males and other brothers in the community.”
 
“It’s a great opportunity for people to learn about Natchez history,” added Darius Williams.
 
McCullen said the students are members of Omega Pathfinders, a mentorship program of the Nu Xi chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc.
 
The students will portray the Deacons and some of the key figures in the movement, including Clifford M. Boxley, James “Big Jack” Jackson, Leon Donnan, James Stokes, Otis Mazique, Richard “Dip” Lewis, and John Monroe Fitzgerald.
 
The Deacons for Defense organization was first organized in 1964 in Jonesboro, La., in response to the terror and violent acts of the Ku Klux Klans against civil rights activists. The Deacons, many of whom were actual deacons in the church, carried firearms for the protection of the activists, as well as for themselves.
 
The Deacons were portrayed in the 2003 film, Deacons for Defense, which featured actor Forest Whitaker. The Natchez Deacons were featured in the film, Black Natchez (1967) and in PBS Frontline’s “American Reckoning (February 2022). This local branch formed in 1965 following the bombing of NAACP President George Metcalfe's vehicle on Aug. 27, 1965.

Pictured on this flyer is James “Big Jack” Jackson, leader of the Natchez Deacons for Defense. He was a barber at Donnan’s Barbershop, which was used as a command center for the Deacons.

‘Show and tell’

 
Local historian Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-Clifford M. Boxley was a civil rights activist who helped the Natchez Deacons. He supports the dramatization by McCullen. He said it is “wonderful” that McCullen is using a “living history format to show and tell” the history of the Natchez Deacons.
 
“Jamal has been a regular actor in my annual Black and Blue Civil War Living History Programs,” Boxley said. “He is a natural and outstanding actor and working up young students to portray living history of the Natchez Deacons is a chip off of what we been doing for the young Afrikan descent U. S. Colored Troops freedom fighters of the 19th century, who helped make the first mass civil rights gains of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments possible!”
 
McCullen said that in addition to consulting with Boxley, his research for the project was informed by family connections. “I was familiar with the story through family relationships, family folklore, and things I grew up seeing and hearing,” he said. “At the time, I did not know about certain things, but I was later able to connect the dots.”
 
The play is 45 minutes in length. It will include music and freedom songs from the 1960s. McCullen said the song, “In the Mississippi River,” is sure to have an impact on the audience. The song mentions lynchings in Mississippi, including the brutal 1964 murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman in Philadelphia, Miss.
 
According to McCullen, the idea for the play grew out of a discussion he had with the church volunteers, which included Dora Hawkins, Jacqulyn Williams, and Thelma Newsome, all of whom manage the Dr. John Bowman Banks Museum on St. Catherine St., the former headquarters of the local NAACP.
 
“The ladies at the Dr. John Banks House asked me in August 2022 if I can do something for them on Black History dealing with the Deacons for Defense, and I said yes, I can make that work,” McCullen recalled.
 
McCullen said he was honored by their request. Inspired, he began brainstorming. He started writing the script over Thanksgiving and finished it during the Christmas break.
 

James “Big Jack” Jackson, leader of the Natchez Deacons for Defense, is featured prominently in the film, “Black Natchez” (1967). His character will be portrayed by Natchez High School student Darius Williams in “The Natchez Deacons for Defense: A Dramatization.”

Remembering the Deacons

 
According to Boxley, the story of the Deacons holds an important place in Natchez history. He said it is a story of “Black men and women supporters who organized themselves into an armed action defender organization to defend the modern civil rights movement participants and the Negro community from the continued, wanton, unbridled, murder and terrorists’ violence heaped upon Blacks by Whites of the Ku Klux Klan, Citizens Councils, police, gangs and individuals in general.”
 
The Deacons, he said, must be remembered as they were: “They were a 20th century or modern civil rights movement organization that grew out of the membership of the local NAACP branch, Voters League, Churches, U. S. Army veterans, social clubs and Negro Communities in general, who wanted to regain in the 20th century, the 19th century civil rights to vote (based upon the 14th amendment).”
 
With the help of the Deacons, the civil rights workers in Natchez implemented a three-pronged approach that led to success in the struggle. Boxley said that in addition to armed defense, they used economic boycott of businesses owned by whites and enforcement of adherence to the boycott in the black community. This led to the defeat of the “Jim Crow white supremacy segregation domination” in Natchez, Boxley said.

Writer and director Jamal McCullen with the cast of “The Natchez Deacons for Defense: A Dramatization.” Seated from left are Darius Williams, Anthony West, Malachi White, and Ashton Williams. Standing from left are Jamal McCullen and Kaimon Shaw.