Each artwork a different chapter print hope you can visit soon. Summa hello look at the southern festival of books. I am your host jared porter apply to join us today. Before we begin, on the behalf of humanities tennessee at think a direct of the southern festival of books. Metro National Arts commission, ingram content group, tennessee arts convention, and about university and Parnassus Book spray think of your support that makes this event possible. And speaking of support the festival is free part is a event and donations of individuals like you help make it possible every year. If you believe this event in sessions like this one, you can help it happen. Please give at hum tn. Org. Again that is hum tn. Org. A couple of vermonters before we begin. Parnassus books his official bookseller for the festival in purchasing through them keeps the festival freak and buy books today to the links of the top of the chats. You have an opportunity to ask questions later in the session is your tuning and gift Facebook Live or youtube you consummate questions by downloading the festival app or through the streaming site www. Hum tn. Org tn. Org sfv. Again hum tn. Org sfv. Class questions and comment in the live, be civil and respectful. The festivals apple blue monitoring and removed comment if needed country that wont be needed. I know than to introduce our special guest. Wando lloyd is the author of coming full circle from jim crow to journalism. Distribute africanamerican woman who grew up in the south in 1950s and 60s. Shoot on to hold some of the highestranking newspaper leadership positions in america and was one of the first africanamerican women to be top editor of a mainstream daily newspaper. Coming full circle is a window at the intersection of race, gender, culture and the medias role in america democracy. She is currently working on anthology with her coeditor, novelist tina mack wright called meeting the table. Africanamerican women right on race, culture and community. Shes also norm the Georgia Writers Association board of directors. To impel them as a professor, oratory and human rights activists. One of the leading activists. Hes a founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum of a racist memorabilia at Paris University in big rapids michigan. 13000 collection that teaches about race, Race Relations through artifacts. Through various universities a professor of sociology and head of diversity and inclusion. Hes the coauthor paste derives a remarkable experience of education during jim crow when she is here to talk about today. Look forward to hearing where speakers has to say is as im sure you are. Well start with wando, welcome wando. Guest thank you jared its a pleasure to be here at the southern festival of books. Really honored to be included in this event. My memoir is a story of a young girl who grew up in the south in the 1950s and 60s. He became a top newspaper edito editor. My dream was always to be a journalist. I went to school and a time or were told where we could go to school how we could go to school the kind of equipment had, the resources we had been secondhand books, furniture handed down from white schools. Our teachers were all black. In my life all the way through high school was completely blackbird that was not a silly bad thing. As a good thing and that we had a sense of community. We supported each other, grew up in a black neighborhood in a time when some of the people there were College Educated and some barely finished high schoo school. But we did not discriminate amongst ourselves in terms of class. We all live together, work together, supported each other. I tell stories in my memoir about the neighbor ladies who are part of my village. Shed sit on my grandmothers porch drinking lemonade out of mason jars or would send me to the store sometimes to get a cocacola with a few coins. I didnt know theyre getting high on the front porch. [laughter] anyone knows about those two things, they can make you a little bit goofier and intoxicated. Theres fun to corrupt and that kind of environment. We had segregated libraries. Our library, we had a flak library would go to on the weekend following the direction of our teachers who take a couple of buses they get to the library, the carnegie lever was a black library. And then would have to order the book from the library that often our teachers needed. Because sometimes the books we want to were not in the black library. They were the big White Library downtown. Take wood to get the book to get them back to us. Men take the bus back home the following week and we go back to life and pick up the books that we wanted. We had segregated parks. We cannot when the parks in savannah that other people went too. So i say that to save the segregated upbringing. Then i transitioned into this mainstream world. I decided the 11th grade journalism is what i wanted to do after i was editor of my paper in high school. On so i went to, i found myself in a situation as copy editor my first news role, first of seven daily paper newsrooms were scared to death because id never really spent time with the white people. I did know how to talk to people. I did not understand the cultural things they were talking about. We had read different books would seem different movies. Our growing up years were very different. Those accomplished in itself. I was no longer in the south. My book is really in for parts. I like to send us four themes in my book. My family that is my history and the history of our country at the time. The second story is the journalism because i became a journalist. There are lots of stories in there about being a journalist, becoming an editor becoming a Senior Editor at usa today. Went to read a little bit about my time story from my time at the usa today. Another part is leadership because i became a leader in every newspaper and how the book is really about how i became a leader and i finally had when i was at usa today. Because we did not have mentors growing up. My journalism teacher in high school didnt know anyone who worked in a daily newspaper. She taught journalism from a book. So here i was learning to be a leader and industry that africanamericans had become leaders in. The fourth part is about diversity. Because i became a diversity advocate. Realizing that in the 70s when i entered my first newsroom in 1970 as an intern and i was the only one part i was only one who looks like me in that room. One of two women in the newsroom at the time. So there is great work to be done. Newspaper sums in the value of diversity they do a lot of training and newsrooms. I became a diversity advocate. Also to the American Society newspaper editors. One to a story, short story at a time and a Senior Editor usa not only bring the newsroom from the business side wondered some people in the newsroom. I was 40 million but that was a big deal. I was also responsible for the daily planning of the newspaper. Around two of the three daily news meetings we talked about. Usually the following day. Hera was we were in northern virginia. I did notice caller id the number from the local 703 Virginia Area code. Desk phone rang i have a proper business suit and highheeled pumps supporting those errata race down the halls the Conference Room to sit at the head of the table to lead one of the daily usa today business meetings. I was getting into the room before my meeting time my leadership encouraged others refocusing meeting will begin on time. My daughters summer camp was calling me. Mrs. Roy, i need to share something that happened was shelby today. Sorry awesome place. My heart raced, fearful that my five year old daughter had fallen and cracked open her school on the alexandria campus. Or should let the grounds and police were looking for her were she drowned in the pool. The last fear was probably because it she was two years old i made sure to enroll shelby and swimming lessons for her daycare program. The time he called all the kids out of the pool today, shelby had dropped her tile in the water, the director told me. The children take a rest and quite done on their tile after pool time. Soviets were the other little girls if she could share her dry towel. The little girl told shelby no because she said mike grandy said i cant let black people touch me because the black might wear off. My mind now far away from the urgency of the news meeting going on down the hall without me struggled to process what i had just heard. The black might wear off . I repeated into the phone. Not to the Camp Director but to myself. Stunned i walked through my desk and close the office door. Someone else would have to lead the meeting. My tears were starting to fall. I was angry that i live through jim crow years home we are told when, where, how to exist. I survived the humiliation of being called a necker, funding spat out, living the dual rights of the best blackness in the best black that. Not just the best at something. I had grown up in the south where we were never surprised the 1950s and 1960s about what white people thought about us are said out loud to us. Or denied us the right too the best education or careers or neighborhood. Here i was more than 20 years after leaving the jim crow south and some white grandfather had instilled in one of his own my child was a danger to his child because mine was black. I was not mad at that child. It was not her fault. And is not mad at the director because the daughter of the employee was immediately sent home is confronted with the reason why my shelby is left crying by the pool because this little girl would not share a towel. Shelby was not old enough to understand the racist statement the black might wear off. She was just happy someone she probably considered a friend had denied her the opportunity to share her tile, her space. All the shelbys lesson was clearly to be more careful with her towel. But is my fingers wept across my tears i recognize that i had to go home that night and explained to my daughter, as best i could explain it the lesson white girl learn from her grandfather. Someone who probably had the racist behavior of its own ancestors. Id not imagined i would still be done this with this kind of racist behavior directed towards my own child. Now i fear that shelby may someday have to deal with racism with her own children. And her childrens children. The thought angered me to it this day. So i tried to tell a lot of the stories in a relatable way instead of just preaching this is bad this is what happened to jim crow. I recognize thats going to my life and my career there still a lot of leftover habits from jim crow all around me. My leaving the south i did not leave jim crow behind. There all of the country people have moved here and there. Its still going on. Im hopeful my memoir will inspire young people who are aspiring and other careers. And also leaders. Lunch important for other africanamericans and women that we provide opportunity wherever they are. We Learned Leadership in summary different places. Talk in the book about the leadership lessons i got in my neighborhood, my church, by school and my college where i was editor of my paper in college as well. There are lots of opportunities for leadership. And clearly those opportunities might get our careers is important. The biggest lesson whats with young people with when you become a leader please popa chair bring someone else along. Show other people how to become leaders. Im proud to mention ive been able to do that. My books really outline those things as well. Thank you for this opportunity and i look forward to your questions. Student thank you wando, powerful memories. Changing times in some ways a change in ways they havent. I know your story will continue. There are more chapters to be written. David. Went to bring you into the chat in the conversation here. Look forward to your remarks about jim crow and all of the works. Think its a much as talking to wando before he went on the air. I said to her i sometimes feel like i went to sleep and 2020 but we awakened a 1957. Much of the rhetoric i hear nationally sounds a lot like what it sound up when i was growing up in alabama in the 1960s. That is unfortunate. What people come to the Jim Crow Museum what was it like to live during the jim crow during the civil rights struggle . What i say to them is we are still living during the civil rights struggle. Despite many changes that have occurred in this country. Think its much for inviting me here. I will likely start with the reading. Im hopefully it comes through. Im glad to get started. A mural troubles me. I was not a mural in the narrow sense. A painting on a wall. Rather its a free having painting on a spread canvas. The mural is a massive displayed in the atrium of the arts and Sciences Building at ferris State University. The three panels are presented in an inverted tshaped. The left panel, movers and shakers portrays the Administrative Team as they plan the universitys future. The right panel, activities as a collection of fictional student athletes. The center panel is called the visionary. The dominant figure is wood which bears the universitys founder. He is larger than the other figures and appears to be looking over them as they continue the work that he began in 1884. The mural is a visual success. Robert barnum the merrills creator is an artist. He is still an artist and is familiarity with the institution had been employed as a professor for seven years, made him a likely candidate for painting the mural. Barnum envisioned a historical allegorical painting of bear State University. Nana used his papers to tell the stories that he knew. The story that barnum knew, indeed the story most of us knew have little to say about the africanamerican presence at their State University. Theres a couple ambiguous characters in the painting theres only one finger that clearly represents an africanamerican. A black man holding a sign that says negotiate now. Viewers of the mural might reasonably infer that africanamericans were a little consequence in the history of the universe. Seventeen years i taught sociology at ferris State University. Much of that time i had an office in the arts and Sciences Building. So i saw that mural hundreds of times. My critique of the painting and softened by the realization that even though i am an africanamerican, one who frequently taught courses about Race Relations i too knew little about the history of africanamericans at fairburn id heard racial fights in the 1960s and student protests in the 80s. And i had a vague knowledge of the bin smith reputed to be the first africanamerican student. That is all i knew. It pains me to it say this, but the mural bothered me because i believed it was true , historically accurate interpretation of the past. Now i know better. And so the it happened mvp for diversity and inclusion in our campus, our campus is profoundly white. I said to frankly he is the coauthor of by book, go in find a photograph of gideon smith. We thought he was the first africanamerican at the school. Were going to build a sculpture or some huge painting. And he went and found a painting a picture. But it had several africanamericans. I said who are these other people . And he said he didnt know. I said okay but we need to find out. And he should get credit for this story. I was with the creation of the story. He began to dig in old newspapers and an Old University catalogs. What we discovered was between 1910 between 1910 and the 1920s, over 60 African Americans came from hampton institute, north, to bear State University to take college prep classes. That not exaggerating when i say this, they were some of the most influential people in the American Civil Rights movement. And in the history of this country. For example the first africanamerican to win a case before the United States supreme court. You have to understand how much pride i had when i discovered that he was one of the students who attended what was called then fair institute. His editor of the pittsburgh courier. On first africanamerican in 1947 become the first africanamerican to be admitted to the press corps on the houses of congress. Attended ferris pretties one of the students who came from hampton to ferris. But we discovered many of them. They lived amazing lives an owner told the story before. Until kind of reminds me, sometimes people say why do black history and mexican history and womens history and all these other histories. My answer is if you dont want all these histories just do it right. And right history in a way thats inclusive, auteur and accurate. Two thats a story thats told in the book. Its also the story of our founders. Because long fun of it before is normal our founders anti racist advocate. As i said before, he brought the students input he also brought booker t. Washington to address our students. He would read from the writings of booker t. Washington from wd boyd and other African American americans. He was reading writings for example the soul of the black folks at 1903 when it first came out it was very controversial. He also by the way every think of john brown who is one of the most divisive characters in american history, some people see him as a madman, a crazed fanatic, others see him as a house store column figure who helped usher in civil war. While for a White College president in the early 1900s to be praising john brown as a hero was uncommon. When the birth of a nation came out he condemned it. He used his position as governor to help African Americans. So this book was also an opportunity to celebrate our founder. Its kind of interesting. I was talking to franklin and i said this was a labor of love. But it was most definitely labo labor. Ive always been a little jealous of my colleagues who were writers who could set aside an hour a day for a glass of sherry and a para