Gunner Ochoa

OXFORD, Miss – Garrett Felber, historian, professor, and author of Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Struggle, and the Carceral State is coming to speak for SouthTalks for the school of Southern Studies this week.

Felber will be speaking on [UPDATE: It’s been moved from February 5th to Friday the 14th of February ] in the Tupelo Room in the Barnard Observatory. He will be talking about his new book, also Fighting Prison Nation, the Carceral State, and the Black Freedom Struggle

An assistant professor of history here at the University of Mississippi, Felber teaches African American History and Critical Prison Studies.

Felber received his bachelor’s degree from Kalamazoo College in English and American studies. He got his MA from the University of Columbia in African American Studies and then went on to get his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in American Studies.

While being a professor at UM, his research has focused on African American social movements, U.S. political and social history. Also, his teachings and research have been about, the carceral state.

His book “Those Who Know Don’t Say” is about the political history of the Nation of Islam, which shows the role of Black Nationalism and prison activism in the postwar black freedom struggle. It talks about the rise of mass incarceration in the United States.

“I came up with the idea and started writing my book in 2010 for my dissertation,” Garrett Felber said. “I was one of the lead researchers for the Malcolm X Project, which got me interested in mass incarceration.”

Right now, Felber is currently researching the early debates around prison abolition within the civil rights movement during and right after the second world war.

He is beginning to start to write two new books, one of the books “We Are All Political Prisoners: The Writings of Martin Sostre,” being about a collection of writings by political prisoner Martin Sostre. The other book he is writing, “The Norfolk Plan: The Community Prison in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” is the only community prison in the United States.

Felber was also the lead organizer for the Making and Unmaking Mass Incarceration conference that at the university during December, which was about the history of mass incarceration and the future of prison abolition in Mississippi.

He is also the project director for the Parchman Oral History Project, which is a collaborative oral history and documentary which tells about incarceration in the state of Mississippi. He co-founded Liberation Literacy in 2016, which is an abolitionist, collective reading group. Which builds social justice and literacy through prisons in Oregon

He also leads the Prison Abolition Syllabus which is a collaborative list of readings with people’s perspectives about prison strikes in 2016 and 2018 in the United States

Felber is a big advocate for the Mississippi Freedom Letters campaign, which is working to send letters to people who’re incarcerated in Mississippi prisons to give them support.

Many of Felber’s students love him as a professor, are excited to listen to him speak about his book and see what he researched outside of class.

“He engages with his audience and strives to teach the idea of history,” student Garrett Dillon said. “He talks about the facts about what happened rather than just follow a curriculum and give an exam.”

Felber also will be speaking and signing autographs for his book on Monday at Square Book’s starting at 5:30 p.m. right off the square in downtown Oxford.

“Ya, we try to support as many local authors as we can,” said Square Books book buyer Cody Morrison. “We have 150 events a year, and love when we can get a local author and their new book in.”

 

 

Sources

Garrett Dillon  –  210-289-7618

Cody Morrison –   662-236-2262

Garrett Felber –    felber@olemiss.edu

 

OXFORD, Miss. – Will Jacks, photographer, and author of Po’ Monkey’s: Portrait of a Juke Joint, will be the first speaker for the spring semester of School of Southern Studies for SouthTalks events.

Jacks will start speaking at noon Jan. 29 in the Tupelo Room in the Barnard Observatory. He will be giving his thoughts on Po’ Monkey’s, the Delta, cultural tourism.

Jacks was born and raised in Cleveland, MS, where he still lives today. He did his undergrad at Millsaps College, a few years after graduating, he decided to go back to grad school at UM to study journalism, where he found his love for photojournalism.

“I was always interested in art, but spent most of that curiosity painting, drawing, and working in ceramics (pool;y I might add) before discovering photography in journalism graduate school at Ole Miss in the mid-1990s,” he said. “I moved home following completion of my course work and ran my own studio for about 20 years before easing into teaching and higher education.”

Where he teaches at Delta State University in the department of Delta Center Culture and Learning, he would not consider himself a fan of blues — but trying to understand the culture of the Delta.

“My interest lies mostly in trying to understand my home in deeper ways, and if your home is the Mississippi Delta, the blues are a part of that equation,” he said. “But so are civil rights, farming, the Mississippi River, hunting and fishing, football, big families, soul food, health problems, and drinking too much.”

Jacks first got the assignment to take pictures and document about Po’ Monkey’s, for an assignment for a regional magazine. It was located outside of Merigold, MS, and was the last rural juke joint in the state of Mississippi. Owned by the late great Willie Seaberry, who opened the juke joint in the 1960s and ran it for more than fifty years

“I took about nine months to document it, and after the story was published decided I wasn’t finished, so I kept going back for about ten more years,” he said. “I’ll stress again, though, it’s not because I was a fan of the blues – it was because I was curious about those who are, what brought them to Mississippi from all over the world, and what impact that was having on my home.”

Jacks ended up spending ten years documenting Po’ Monkeys. Where he became a regular, recorded the people and place that made juke joint what it was. Capturing in 70 black and white photos in his book of spending a decade at Po’s being a regular.

After the late owner, Willie Seaberry, passed, they ended up closing down the famous PO’ Monkeys. With its closing, Jacks believes that it is not Po’ Monkeys Burden to maintain the value, but it is the community’s.

“That community isn’t just the folks that live geographically nearby; it’s all the people throughout all the years that visited and took a little piece of the Delta back with them after their visit – both literally and metaphorically,” he said. “That’s the real challenge that matters most – when there is no longer just a good time to be had with beer and music and dancing and laughter – how willing are we to stay committed to the deeper issues that created a foundation for all of that to emerge.”

Jack doesn’t want Po’ Monkey’s just to be remembered for the Blues they played there. But also for all the people who visited and how hard Willie Seaberry worked to keep it running.

“So the challenge is – how committed are we to learning from the dynamics that forced Willie into the decisions he made as well as the strength and intellect he showed to force the world to pay attention,” he said “ It’s not Willie’s job to do anything anymore but be a memory of a man who built an amazing gathering space. It’s our job to pay attention.”

This is just one of the many speakers who will be coming to speak for the SouthTalks series for southern studies. The exhibit of his picture from the book is in the lobby of the Barnard Observatory.

“He published his book around the end of 2019,” Professor of Southern Studies and head of SouthTalks David Wharton. “ The book is pretty darn good and seemed like an obvious person to invite.

Many students are excited to get a chance to hear Jacks talk about Po’ Monkey’s and all its blues history. What effect it had on the Delta in the state of Mississippi.

“The blues artists influenced the people who influenced us,” student and local musician Colin Carpenter said. “Blue is where we get all our influences as musicians. I wish I could see Po’ Monkeys today; there is so much history there that ultimately changed American culture forever.”

 

Sources

Will Jacks-  info@wiljax.com

David Wharton- 662-915-3377 or dwharton@olemiss.edu

Colin Carpenter- 859-967-9695