And of my my friend. Thank you, sir. This is a Remarkable Book by an incredible human being. So thank you. Thankour moderator or for today. Stephanie w mcdaniels is a longtime friend of the having served on the board of directors for many years. She is a professor of english and of the graduate school at the jackson state. Dr. Mcdaniels saw years. Okay of course i cant sit down. I just want to remind you all that whenever if you want to ask questions, mds, you will need to come to microphone at the podium right there, not try it no matter how loud your teacher voice is. Try not. We dont want you to shout it from your seat okay. Because as we we are filming this now. Great. Thank you and thank you guys for coming coming. Thank you for joining us with the art the panel and at this time, i have the pleasure of introducing our three distinguished panelists and their great works. First, we have maryemma graham. Shes a native of augusta, georgia. Shes the university. Distinguish professor of english at the university of kansas and founding director of. The history of black writing, which she established at the University Mississippi in 1983. The history of black has led national and International Initiatives to promote teaching and Public Engagement with black literary studies, with support from the National Endowment for the humanities, ford and mellon. Professor graham, the author of 12 books that have helped to redefine the field, especially the cambridge companion to the africanamerican novel. And with jerry ward, the cambridge history African American literature on the occasion of the history of black 40th anniversary and grahams retired from teaching to writing full time and answer just im sorry to interrupt generational panel of distinguished scholars gathered at the modern language associations january 2023 conference to celebrate ongoing significance and new ventures and archive programing and literary and its expanding community of digital scholars and practitioners graham lives in lawrence, kansas, is at work on two new books. Her book today that were looking at is entitled the house where my soul lives. The of margaret walker. And shell be at the book signing ten at 3 p. M. Today. I just wanted to mention modern language association. They were much lies and just everything was on. I couldnt even catch my plane. So people to really want to be there to be with you. Miriam mixed have wayne flynt wayne flynt is a southern history educator who retired teaching for decades at auburn university, where he directed more 60 graduate programs. He has lectured at such one university in china at queens university, belfast, northern ireland, at the university of newcastle, oxford, cambridge and sussex in Great Britain at the Franklin Roosevelt center in the netherlands and at the university of vienna. He is the author of books dealing with southern history white, poverty and culture, religion, art and music and, literature. His numerous award include the remembered pat patrick for florida history, the Lillian Smith prize for nonfiction from the Southern Regional council, the Alabama LibraryAssociation Award for nonfood auction three times the. Sea van woodward. John hope. Franklin prize by the fellowship of southern writers, the scott and Zelda Fitzgerald museum award for excellence in writing a nomination for. The Pulitzer Prize in 1989 and the alabama governors award for arts. His book is entitled afternoons with harper lee. He will be signing at three as well. And our third panelist, virginia magee butler, shes the daughter, a country pastor. She grew up in north mississippi, used willie, last in a book, she married allen butler, the Church Pianist from one of those churches the army drafted out shortly after she graduated from ole miss. She and their three children accompanied him for 24 years as he pursued military career. She taught kindergarten in san antonio, texas, second grade in kaiserslautern west germany and four in fort polk, louisiana, and gifted junior high Language Arts in leadville, louisiana. This last assignment helped her figure out just what she wanted to be when she up a writer attracted by the grumman childrens literature collection and the Francis Collins center for gifted studies at the university of southern mississippi, usm. She retired to hattiesburg in 2001, involvement with usc, instagram and childrens collection led to becoming the researcher for the 50th Anniversary Edition of the snowy day, where she found a biography that needed to be written, becoming Ezra Jack Keats was, published by the University Press of mississippi in 2023. Her writing appeared in highlights cricket cinema. The writer and the sabc wri bulletin and other publications. Each of her children has an approved spouse, she says. And there are ten grandchildren. Six boys, four girls she and al enjoy by two of the grandsons who live next door she can often can be found out at the grumman childrens literature or writing, and her blog called reading writing, but much arithmetic at ww u virginia mcgee butler dot com. In her book becoming ezra keats. Like the others, they be signing in the book tents at 3 p. M. So were going to open with our first question. So on the published schedule for the 2023 mississippi book festival, the Panel Summary blurb designed to describe this Panel Session and to get audience into this room and were glad you joined us. Is written as follows biographies delve into the lives of notable authors whose works resonate with themes of resilience, cultural and universal human experiences deeply influencing literatures landscape. Focusing on the latter part, this blurb talk a bit about authors walker keats and lee body their bodies of work deeply influenced literatures landscapes, deeply influenced literatures landscapes. Miriam oh, thank you. Everybody in my ear ear. Thank you for being here today. And happy to be here as well. This is a really good question because this morning, what our volunteers for the book festival gave me a ride over and when and asked me how i got to mississippi and a story that i said that i came in 1973 to the Phillis Wheatley festival and she immediately said, oh, that sounds like a Founding Mission for what were doing today. And i said, you got exactly right. So she gave me my opening statement. Is that walkers work was foundation in every way, and writing her biography, i discovered just how foundational it was she. That intersection between, if she knew literature, was like, its not sufficient for to know it. I have to translate it to public spaces, i have to share it more a lot more broadly. My role as somebody has benefited from all this knowledge is to deliver it in different ways. And i think she was that that transit and that that person who needed to have a community who could be as richly endowed should i say as she was she felt she had had a Brilliant Education a first class education, a classical education greek, latin, the whole nine yards. But she, a poet and a novelist, but short of that she really figure out how to transfer and translate her experiences to a broader public and. So this morning, when i heard that someone was simply driving me here would say, she gave us the foundation, she did an many different ways in terms of poetry. The title of first collection for my people says it all. She was not just writing poetry in a modernist tradition, which is what era she was writing in. She was figuring out how to say in a way that it embraced her. People embraced everybody. She writing not only for herself, but she was the intersection between herself and people. And that something that she continued to do in all of the work that she did here in mississippi for all of her life. Virginia what about keats . When ezra . Jack keats wrote, the snowy day, which are so most you know about . He had been writing for ten years for had been illustrating for ten years for other writers. And he was really by what he saw and he had to illustrate the that he got had a book setting and all the children were white and he could look out his window at his studio and see children of various cultures playing outside. And he knew something was wrong with that. One of his assignments was to illustrate childrens reading and he taught those grade school you may know about panorama, he illustrated the entire reading for panorama. There is one one story in panorama that is of a child of color all the other stories, there were white kids. The story, the picture in the teachers manual of the school and the children coming has a stairway and the teacher standing the door. Of course, shes white. Every child coming up that stairway to go into school is white and class. That bothered him and he thought that children should all children should see themselves books the year that snowy day was published, the percentages of children of color would not have been enough in Childrens Books to have even been statistically significant. There was an Nancy Larrick article in september 1965, which is a couple of years after snowy day came out, called the all white world of Childrens Books, and she addresses in her statistics said that over the three year period, from 1962 to 1964, only four fires of 1 . You want to say that another way . Thats. 00. A thank you would you start over should start up. Did you hear what oak. Oak anyway that another way to say that is point 008 children straight books from 63 publishers told a story of a which was the word they used then other ethnicities would been similar and they were not even mentioned so. He started writing his snowy day in a time when you just did not find children from other ethnicities in books, there were are very very few here and there and even those frequent were in some of stereotypical fashion not as real children. So this year, this past 2022, the statistics were required if Childrens Book count. So at the University Madison a wisconsin madison which ran statistics on multiple cultural Childrens Books all time, said 40 were had at least one creator who was a person of color, 70 had at least one creator who was white. 46 had a person of color who was character in the book, and 0. 39 had a primary character who was of color, in addition to that other things that have happened this year, year, 20, 22 newbery award and all the honor books newbery were women of color, which is also significant. But if go back and look at your guide for this festival and look at your panelist and look at the people who here presenting, you will see who are not all white white. I can go to my library at oak grove in lamar county on any given day of the week. Go the childrens section and i will see a multitude of entire seeing Childrens Books that represent children from many ethnicities. And that happens all the time thats the global picture of what happened when Ezra Jack Keats took it upon himself to a book about a little boy in the snow and decide that that little boy could be black. I mean, he does the same things in the snow that any kid would this now hes representative of all kids but he could be black thats the big picture individual or pictures are just as important counted one by one when my book my and i posted on my blog that it was out one of my followers is kid who used to sit in my class and i thought about him a lot when. I wrote the section about kate sitting in his english class in the back corner drawing pictures while teachers teaching about english. He knew what she said and occasion only would contribute if he had something to say. And when i read that, i thought about larry, who used to sit in the back corner of my class and draw pictures while i was teaching, he was a young black boy. When i posted this on my he posted under his comment and i want to read it. I wish you could see it as he had punctuation. I did it. But this is what he said keats was so for me, i the snowy day from his earliest and how his incrowd illustrations in parentheses got up i black all in caps little boy just like me impacted me. I was determined to live in the snow and eventually did all because of him. And now as an adult and design and illustrator professor, his works continue to impact and motivate me. And my students, brian collier, who is one of the best childrens illustrators, if you asked me because i have own opinion gave, a speech at the National Society of Childrens Book writers and illustrators and he was doing the keynote and he began speech by saying, when i was a little boy, my mother taught head start. She home, harold and the purple crayon and the snowy day and but the first time i saw myself in a picture book. One of my favorite kates books is pet snow, and its got a picture of the pet show with all the kids. And the kids are tall, short and fat, scrawny and of every ethnicity you could think about. And theyre all in a line for the judge, who strangely looks a little bit like ezra. Jack keats himself. The other thing did besides letting us know that all children be in books, every child should be able to find somebody in a picture book that looks a little bit like them. The other thing he did was to use his setting, his settings, brought the city to children before his writing most of the Childrens Books were in the country, the suburbs. But he found the beauty the city in all of his books or set in that environment when. You think about somebody who turned the world around. The saying is that ever the journey of a thousand, a thousand miles begins with one step. He made a giant step in getting diversity into our childrens literature and turning, turning the of childrens literature really on its head. Were not there yet, folks. Weve still got a lot to do. But he got it. Lane goes about harper lee. Of course, winning the Pulitzer Prize was. The most important moment in her life because it took one of the most private women i know in my lifetime and made her one of the most public women in terms of aspiration but not in terms of response to our goal in life was to be as private after the future as before the future. If you want to know why she didnt other books her answer was i have to. More particularly a book that still sells some even copies a year after all this year was the book she wanted to write the only book she went write. The outcome of that was that in a contest in australia, about five years ago. The question was what is your favorite american book and landslide . It was killer mockingbird and when i told her that right at the end of her life and in assisted living, she said waltzing matilda, matilda matilda, shes saying, than i did, she backed that up. You know that esquire, pbs a contest for six months of not long before she died and the contest was a very one of that is what is your Favorite Book and landslide of america your Favorite Book as responded to by pbs, was to kill a mockingbird. Most interestingly, or in 2021 and december of 2000, 21, the New York Times review section had a contest based on their leonardtown 35th anniversary of publishing the New York Times book review section. And the question was very simple as a four year question was, what is your Favorite Book and who is your favorite published in the last hundred and 25 years by a landslide it was to kill a mockingbird of i i dont really know what literary critics think of to kill a mockingbird theyre divided. I pretty much know readers worldwide think of phil morgan, bird. It is worlds most beloved book all these years after this book was published. Okay. Moving the question to. Thank you all. So in reading your works, i found so many profound passages which i couldnt wait to mark and share with my colleagues. So here im going to just ill refer to one quote. It passes from each of your books and ask you this to expound on that passage. So from becoming ezra, jack keats, im quoting here, reminiscent of my mothers lemonade, keats took, the tartness and flavor of own life, added and created an ideal ized childhood, overtly and subtly, he included people who were important to him in his storyline and in his artwork. The stories he wrote sometimes mirrored his memories, and sometimes adjusted his own experience to a more kid friendly world. And for those of you have your books, thats on page 137. So virginia, im going to start with in which he adjusted it to, make it better when he was a boy he frequently got this disturbed by what was happening at home and one day he got and remembered that in his reading book at school hed heard about a little boy that put his baggage in a kerchief on the end of a stick and away from home. So he decided that was way he was going to take care of his problem as well. He came. His mother is cleaning the floor and so he tells her that hes going to run away from home. And instead of saying about staying at home, she says, well, look, youre your things not todd, right . Let me help you, todd. And so she sent him out the World Running away from home. And he spent an afternoon first outside with the boys playing cards and doing things, then wandered to uncle louie and eight roses out, stayed there. The family decided that maybe things were actually better at home, so he went back. The dark little scared as goes back and gets home, starts knocking on the door and his mother will not let him in. They having a party inside, she will not let him in. And