Tag: Civil Rights History
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The Autobiography of Brenda Lavern Travis, c. 1961
I had the honor of meeting Mrs. Brenda Travis in 2023. Ms. Marilyn Lowen called and asked if I could drive Mrs. Travis from Jackson to the Delta for a two-day event commemorating the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer. It was a quick yes! That is how our friendship began, in my car, during a…
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“One of the Sleepless Ones:” The Autobiographies of Winson Hudson
The Autobiography of Mrs. Winson Hudson, A Black Woman of Mississippi (an excerpt)—I live in Leake County. I was born here. My father and mother was born here. My husband and I moved to Chicago a year after we were married, neither one of us liked it there. It was not long after we got there that we…
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Freedom Summer | Volunteer Phil Lapsansky
When I learned that Mr. Phil Lapsansky transitioned, I remembered seeing his application for the Mississippi Summer Project in the F.I.S. Archive. I thought it would be fitting if I began with his.
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In Search of a Black Woman’s Archives
It was my third time viewing Geraldine Wilson’s Papers at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Crumbled in the bottom of box 3, belonging to no folder, I found this small piece of paper, a medical record. The diagnosis”breast ca.” Breast Cancer. I wonder what that day meant to Geraldine, what came to…
Diary of a Historian 