Mom,writer, filmmaker, teacher, recovering New Yorker My writing, filmmaking and teaching are all knit together by my fascination with stories. Over the past 17 years I have created documentaries centered on oral history of historic African American schools, and on sharecropping. …

My life took an unexpected turn three years ago. Without dragging you through a lot of boring medical details, suffice it to say my hair is just now coming back for the second time. Yes, I have had so much chemo that I have lost my hair twice already. However, this article is not about my cancer, it’s about coming to terms with my stuff. It’s about trying to make things easier on my family for that inevitable time when I pass, which may well be sooner rather than later. It’s also a little bit about curation– wanting certain people to have certain things.

On March 17, 1918, The Wilmington Dispatch (Wilmington, NC) reported that Isaac Murray Powers had spoken the day before in Wallace, NC at a gathering organized by the Red Cross. The meeting took place at an African American church, with the Red Cross chapter president speaking first about “why each…

Same stuff, different day Image by Schaferle from Pixabay There was a carton of meal replacement drinks in my cart. The kind you might drink if you have been ill, or that you get for your elderly parent, which was the case with me. I had purchased the drinks for…

Poster for 12/1/22 screening of CF Pope documentary at CFCC’s Movie and a Message series Photo by Nixon Leaders Center, CFCC The Nixon Leaders Center of Cape Fear Community College (CFCC) will screen the documentary film CF Pope: Where Champions were Grown on Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 3pm in…

Kneeling by his gravestone at the cemetery of Canetuck Missionary Baptist Church in western Pender County, NC, Earnestine Keaton shared her research about her great-great-grandfather, Rev. Richard Keaton. A preacher to enslaved people, in 1865 Rev. Keaton also established some of the first literacy efforts for African Americans in the…

In December, 2021 the Southern Pines Land and Housing Trust won a two year battle to buy back the historic West Southern Pines school property. The property was originally the site of a Rosenwald school constructed on four acres donated by the African American community. The campus was later expanded…

Maggie closed the door of her room gratefully at the end of that long day on which Mr. Brown had returned home. She collapsed on her pallet without bothering to remove her black dress and starched white apron. I’ll hang them up in a moment, she thought. She closed her…

He was from a small town, or he was from a city. They had met only a few months before, or they had been married for years. There were children, or there were no children. They were together constantly, or he had just returned from deployment. He was successful, or…