Tag: Alice Faye Duncan

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Opinion The Last Word

The Making of Willye White — U.S. Olympian

Alice Faye Duncan (Photo: Erica Dunlap)

I made a great discovery during the summer of 2015. While driving through the Mississippi Delta, a sign welcomed me to Greenwood, “Home of 5-Time Olympian, Willye B. White.” Who? I did a Google search. Willye B. White was a Black girl born with fast feet like Hermes. Running from work in cotton fields, she raced in international track competitions from 1956 to 1972. 

I was teaching school. There was no time to research Willye’s life. But in 2020, the pandemic shuttered school, and in the quietness, I remembered Willye White and that welcome sign. The pandemic made space for me to document the achievements of this U.S. Olympian — Black, female, poor, and significant to Tennessee history. My research began on the phone. Former Olympic swimmer Donna de Varona encouraged me to contact Pat Connolly. Connolly and White called themselves “soul sisters.” Connolly is a retired pentathlete and coach who trained U.S. Olympians Evelyn Ashford and Allyson Felix. She put me in contact with former Olympian and Tennessee State University (TSU) track star, Ralph Boston. My uncle, Hugh Strong, connected me with former Olympian, TSU Tigerbelle, and Memphis educator Margaret Wilburn. 

Boston and Wilburn ran with White at TSU. They remembered her to be a resilient athlete and charismatic talker who was called “Mississippi Red” because of her ginger hair. Interviews served me a three-dimensional view of Willye. She was a runner, world traveler, and wise woman, quick with sage observations. For instance, when it came to brutal challenges on the track and in the crucible of the Jim Crow South, she said, “People are always trying to take away my smile, but it’s mine, and they can’t have it.” 

After speaking with Willye’s friends, I wrote the first biography about one of the greatest U.S. Olympians to go uncelebrated in the history books. With palpable excitement, as we approach the 2024 Summer Olympics, the amplification of Willye’s valor begins with me. 

Willye White was the first American to compete for 20 consecutive years during five Olympic Games in track and field. She sprinted and jumped as a member of 39 U.S. international teams, including the first team to visit the Soviet Union in 1958 and first team to visit China in 1975. She set seven world records. And for nearly two decades, Willye was the best female long jumper in the nation with a career high of 21 feet, 6 inches. White’s maternal grandparents, Louis and Edna Brown, were unskilled laborers who raised her up in Greenwood. They inspired her love for learning. Despite Willye’s reading challenges, she graduated high school in 1959. She graduated Chicago State University in 1976. When she was in fifth grade, her older cousin Vee invited Willye to try out for her high school track team. Willye made the team and sports fueled her self-confidence. She said, “Athletics were my freedom. Freedom from ignorance, freedom from segregation.” 

Olympians trained without corporate sponsorship in Willye’s day. So she supported herself working full-time in a Chicago hospital, while training before and after work. Her passion for track was a free ticket to see the world. At 16 years old, in 1956, she participated in her first Olympic Games and won a silver medal in the women’s long jump. She was the first American woman to medal in this event. Willye lived in Greenwood but trained during the summers in Nashville, Tennessee, with Ed Temple, the women’s track coach at TSU. Training in Nashville was her escape from picking cotton. And upon high school graduation in 1959, Willye joined Ed Temple’s TSU Tigerbelles as a freshman. Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph was her Tigerbelle teammate and friend.

It was Coach Temple who nicknamed Willye White “Mississippi Red.” When Red started socializing off campus and missing curfew, Temple canceled her scholarship. She withdrew from TSU in 1960 and moved to Chicago. Temple met Willye again in the summer of 1960 and 1964 when he coached the U.S. Women’s Olympic track teams in Rome and Tokyo. The two mended their differences, and during the 1964 Games, he added her to the 4×100-meter relay race. With Wyomia Tyus, Edith McGuire, and Marilyn White, she won her second silver medal for the USA. 

Willye established her track career during the turbulent years of the Civil Rights Movement. While Dr. King marched in street protests, Willye contributed to Black progress on the track with muscle and might. At the end of her track career in 1972, she served as a Chicago city administrator. She also coached student athletes. Willye’s winning mantra was, “If it is to be, it is up to me, because I believe in me!” 

Mississippi Red died in 2007 from pancreatic cancer. The city of Chicago named an athletic complex in her honor. You can visit the Willye B. White Park at 1610 W. Howard Street, Chicago, Illinois. 

Alice Faye Duncan is the official biographer for U.S. Olympian and TSU Tigerbelle, Willye B. White. Traveling Shoes is the story of Willye’s grace and grit. You can find more books from the author at alicefayeduncan.com.

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Opinion The Last Word

Lessons From Grandmother Opal Lee

Grandmother Opal Lee (Photo: Courtesy Dione Sims)

There are lessons to learn from Grandmother Opal Lee. With her silver crown of curls, she is a Black Texas Rose endowed with vision and courage at the age of 97. From 2016 to 2021, Grandmother Opal traveled countless times from her Fort Worth home to Washington, D.C. Her mission was to encourage politicians to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Grandmother Opal also led annual walks across America’s highways, collecting almost two million signatures for her Juneteenth petition. She waged a tireless pursuit in her ubiquitous canvas sneakers.

Dreams do come true. President Biden signed a law making June 19th a federal holiday in 2021. Juneteenth, as it is called, commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to the enslaved in Texas, two years and six months after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The 13th Amendment abolished Black servitude. However, Juneteenth is the touchstone that represents the end of slavery in the collective American mind. People around the globe call Opal Lee the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.” On May 3rd of this year, President Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as she is a symbol of dignity, goodwill, and liberation. The medal is the nation’s highest civilian honor.

I went on a journey to write Opal Lee’s picture book biography for children during the summer of 2020 after the George Floyd murder. We had a lively conversation in December of that year. When our talk ended, I understood with clarity why Juneteenth is a celebration for every American. It is not a “Black holiday.” It is an American holiday. And to that point, here are five lessons that I learned from Opal Lee — the esteemed Grandmother of Juneteenth.

Grandmother Opal said, “Juneteenth is a time for reflection.” Just as for Black Texas families in 1866 at the first Juneteenth anniversary in Galveston, the day remains an occasion to remember our collective past and express gratitude for the tribulations survived. It is also a time to honor Black history-makers and freedom fighters, whose courage paved a road to this present day. When speaking of roots, Grandmother Opal said it was her maternal grandfather who gave her a love for history and the preservation of family ties. His name was Zack Broadous. Born in 1871, he was a Texarkana farmer, landowner, and preacher. Juneteenth is a time we can all reflect on our specific ancestors who believed in the liberation of the mind, body, and spirit.

Beyond ancestral meditations, Grandmother Opal acknowledged the loud rejoicing that surely rang across Texas in 1865 after Black generations had survived more than 200 years on the auction block. As the holiday inspires images of such overwhelming joy, Opal Lee taught me a second lesson. She said, “Juneteenth is a day of music and praise.” Since Glynn Johns Reed’s inaugural Memphis Juneteenth celebration in 1993, each year the Memphis Douglass Park is found teeming with African drumming, local bands, and gospel singers who make the Juneteenth holiday a jubilant Memphis affair. There is no Juneteenth celebration without music. And as I spoke with Opal Lee about Memphis music and our Juneteenth traditions, she quipped, “Twerking is for young people. I do the holy dance!”

During our talk, I asked about food traditions. Grandmother Opal replied, “Juneteenth is a jamboree of feasting and fellowship.” From the first Juneteenth celebration in Galveston until now, many Juneteenth hosts prepare vibrant red foods that Black Americans were denied during servitude. Juneteenth guests might feast on tangy ribs, strawberry pie, and Big Red Soda that is bottled in Waco, Texas. In this new age with various dietary options, Juneteenth tables are also decked in vegan and vegetarian victuals, fancy tarts, and craft mocktails.

When questioned about her ability to form coalitions toward making Juneteenth a national holiday, Grandmother Opal said a wise elder gave her an example in building friendships beyond her neighborhood. That mentor was the late Lenora Rolla, a historian who founded the Tarrant County Black Historical & Genealogical Society. As we spoke about the impact of mentorships, Opal Lee served me a fourth lesson. She said, “Juneteenth is a time for listening to the elders.” Wherever she travels, Grandmother Opal welcomes children. She speaks with them and reads to them in schools, at public libraries, and at Juneteenth celebrations. “If we want the world to survive, healthy and whole,” she said, “we must take time for children. Listen to them.”

I asked one last question. What do people misunderstand about the Juneteenth holiday? Opal Lee taught me a fifth lesson: “No matter who you are, Juneteenth is a unifier that represents freedom.”

These final words served as my guidepost. Immediately, I knew what I would write for children about Opal Lee and the Juneteenth holiday. Hear me with your heart: Juneteenth is bigger than Texas, singing, or dancing bands. Juneteenth is freedom rising, and freedom is for everyone. Juneteenth is for you and me!

Alice Faye Duncan is a Memphis teacher who writes for children. Her Juneteenth book, Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free, has sold 95,000 copies since 2022. Her new barnyard blues story, I Gotta Sing, is available now wherever books are sold. She can be reached at alicefayeduncan.com.

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Book Features Books

To Read, or Not to Read? (May 2024)

Books are and always will be the best part of summer. Assigned summer reading? No, never. But when you get to choose, ah, there’s the sweet spot … until you realize there are just too many books to read and not enough time. That’s why we put the question to Memphis’ booksellers to see what they’re recommending to help make those choices a little easier.

Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop by Alice Faye Duncan (Children)

A historical picture book for students by local award-winning author Alice Faye Duncan, Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop focuses on the 1968 sanitation strike that took place here in Memphis. — Jeremee DeMoir, DeMoir Books & Things

Blood at the Root by LaDarrion Williams (YA)

Blood at the Root is a new release that’s taking over TikTok and seems to be an instant book of interest. Its author says it is his version of “If Harry Potter was Black and went to an HBCU.” The book explores the supernatural and the roots and secrets that connect us in an unforgettable contemporary setting. This heart-pounding fantasy series opener is a rich tapestry of atmosphere, intrigue, and emotion. — Jeremee DeMoir

Black Shield Maiden by Willow Smith

The singer of “Whip My Hair” is back with new music and a book for fans of mythology, high fantasy, and historical fiction. The newly released title follows Yafeu, a defiant yet fiercely compassionate young warrior who is stolen from her home in the flourishing Ghanaian Empire and taken as a slave to a distant kingdom in the North. — Jeremee DeMoir

Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby

A wild ride of 21 short stories from the unbridled imagination of writer Gwen E. Kirby. Anchored by bold female bad-assery, each story instantly demands the reader’s attention.

The whole journey of reading this collection is like a food processor. You are chopped, stirred, pulsed, and crushed. You are shaken up and down and all around and then at book’s end, you are left howling and wanting more.

Funny, tragic, unreal yet real simultaneously, crazy, and savory, every bit of this book is delicious. — Sheri Bancroft, Novel

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

dread (n,v): from the Old English drædan, to shrink from in apprehension or expectation; to fear very much.

One of the definitions used in the book. You don’t have to read horror to get dread. If you don’t have enough home made on your own, here it is store-bought. Etter captures that feeling when you have existential burnout in your work, but it turns your senses off enough to not be able to quit.

This chronicling of the Believers (a perfectly apt name) in the tech world is all too accurate. Having worked in corporate America (though not tech, science, or engineering, but tech-adjacent), this is exactly how it feels to be surrounded by the brand attire-wearing masses who are more company cult than culture. — Dianna Dalton, Novel

Two Minds: Poems by Callie Siskel

Callie Siskel doesn’t miss a beat. Her debut volume, Two Minds, masterfully weaves a thought-provoking exploration of the human psyche, while discreetly grieving her father’s early death. This pulchritudinous elegy delves into the intricate dance between creativity and criticism, and the delicate balance between self-expression and self-doubt. Siskel crafts a narrative that is both deeply personal and universally relatable. Two Minds is a triumph of storytelling, a testament to authenticity, and a shining example of the transformative potential of contemporary poetry. — Blake Helis, Burke’s Book Store

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn / James / The Audacity

My summer reading assignment is to reread Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (not read since 7th grade) and then Percival Everett’s James, a retelling of Twain’s novel from Jim’s point of view. Currently I am reading The Audacity by Ryan Chapman, a comic novel about the implosion of an Elizabeth Holmes Theranos-type company. — Cheryl Mesler, Burke’s Book Store

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

I Am Somebody

Children will be what they see. So, be mindful of your daily habits because they etch memories on the soul of a child. And as children grow up, good or bad, your influence frames the template for their future.  

I was born in South Memphis on Wellington Street between South Parkway and Essex Avenue. The year was 1967. It was a Black neighborhood composed of working people. Like my father, the men taught school. They drove trucks or worked as janitors, factory laborers, and preachers. The women worked as teachers like my mother or served as social workers, nurses, maids, and cooks. Court-mandated integration was in motion, so a few parents on the block also worked government jobs that were once exclusive to white employees.   

Photo: Courtesy Alice Faye Duncan

When I stop to consider their influence, I know that my Black neighbors laid a sturdy foundation for my personhood. Besides manicured lawns, starched collars, and a determination to succeed, they modeled compassion, courage, and conviction that contributed directly to my writing life. In South Memphis, I lived surrounded by history makers and champions for justice. 

ROLL CALL! Attorney George Brown lived on my street. He served as the first Black judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court. Bishop J.O. Patterson Jr. lived two doors from my house. He was one of three Black members elected to the first Memphis City Council. As a council member, Patterson helped to negotiate an end to the Memphis sanitation strike of 1968. 

My friend, Big Mane, lived across the street. Ed Redditt was his father, and he worked as a detective for the local police department. On the day that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered during the strike, it had been Officer Redditt’s job to keep watch over King when the leader visited Memphis to support the garbage workers. 

As an only child who was encouraged to speak at the dinner table, I had parents who were both big readers and talkers. Frequently, they discussed the history and impact of the neighbors on our street. I listened with great interest as my parents shaped me into a small image of themselves. Unfortunately, my loquacious qualities did not translate well in school. My first-grade teacher complained that I talked too much. 

While South Memphis was my world on Monday through Saturday, the landscape changed on Sunday mornings. Mama would dress me up in Sunday clothes. And while Daddy usually stayed home to sleep, Mama drove to North Memphis in her sputtering yellow Beetle, where we worshiped with Black parishioners at St. James AME Church. Our pastor, Henry Logan Starks, was tall like a tree. He wore an Afro and taught Black History from the pulpit. 

My mother held Pastor Starks in the highest regard because he inspired the congregation to pay rent and light bills for striking sanitation workers in 1968. Pastor Starks also marched with the striking workers. He helped them strategize to earn higher pay and safe work conditions. When Dr. King was almost killed during the Beale Street riot on March 28, 1968, it was Pastor Starks who selflessly towered over Martin like a human shield.

My parents sang the praises of Pastor Starks. They taught me to honor the brave history makers that peopled my neighborhood and the Black Memphis community at large. However, Henry Starks’ influence has been the most personal. As a champion for nonviolence and the uplift of children, he practiced the power of affirmations. At the end of every church service, small children would run like cattle for the vestibule to shake the pastor’s hand and hear him declare, “YOU ARE SOMEBODY!” 

Thirty to 40 children stood in line every Sunday. Henry Starks never turned to leave until he shook each hand, raised a peace sign, and blessed each child with an affirmation. 

YOU ARE SOMEBODY!   

I am 56 years old. I write books about Memphis and Black history. My parents served me a template for this life. Now I celebrate what was honored in my home. I celebrate what was honored in my church. And while I don’t remember the sound of my pastor’s voice, I remember how Henry Starks made me feel. He was a light on my path and I believed his sacred words.   

I AM SOMEBODY! 

Alice Faye Duncan writes award-winning books for children. She is the author of Memphis, Martin and the Mountaintop; Coretta’s Journey; and Evicted—the Struggle for the Right to Vote. Visit her at alicefayeduncan.com.

Categories
Book Features Books

Censoring History

Author Alice Faye Duncan (Photo: Alice Faye Duncan)

“That was first time in my life that I saw a living writer. I assumed most of them were dead.” Alice Faye Duncan recalls the day in the sixth grade at Snowden Elementary School in Memphis that the poet Etheridge Knight spoke to her class. Duncan, the child of two educators, was the one walking around with “oodles” of journals, filled with poems and short stories. It was that day her life changed. After that, “I told anyone who would listen, ‘I’m going to be a writer.’”

Today, Duncan is an award winner, the author of 12 books, including her latest, Yellow Dog Blues, the story of a boy and his runaway dog, the Blues Trail, and Beale Street. The New York Times and the New York Public Library have honored the book (with illustrations by Caldecott Medal-winner Chris Raschka) as one of the Best Illustrated among children’s books published in 2022. Duncan’s writing is considered to be in line for awards as well.

Now, Duncan’s 2018 book, Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop, has been pulled into a growing controversy — the banning of books aimed at young readers in conservative-leaning states. Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop received a Coretta Scott King Books For Children Honor Medal in 2019, but since January it has been banned “pending investigation” by the Duval County (Jacksonville, Florida) Board of Education. Speaking on the WKNO-TV series A Conversation With (available at wkno.org), Duncan calls book-banning “anti-intellectual” and “unhealthy” and says it “contributes to the dumbing down of America.”

Duncan’s book is one of almost 200 on the Duval County banned book list. Calls and emails to the Board of Education have not been answered. According to PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans, more than 1,600 titles have been banned or restricted in libraries across America.

Tennessee, through what’s called the Age-Appropriate Materials Act, is one of the states leading the movement to restrict student access to certain books. The act, signed into law in April by Governor Bill Lee, requires “each public school to maintain and post on the school’s website, a list of materials in the school’s library collection.”

While the new Tennessee law is aimed at screening “obscene materials or materials harmful to minors,” the study by PEN America estimates that at least 40 percent of bans nationwide “are connected to either proposed or enacted legislation” or from “political pressure to restrict the teaching or presence of certain books or concepts.” Among those concepts is racism. Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop looks at the ill-fated 1968 strike by sanitation workers from the point of view of a 9-year-old girl, whose father is one of the strikers.

Another of Duncan’s books, Evicted!: The Struggle For The Right To Vote, also published in 2022, chronicles the story of voter registration drives led by Black people in Fayette County, Tennessee, starting in the 1950s.

“My mission is to write books to leave a record for the children who weren’t there,” she says. “Because if we don’t share the history as we are seeing it, people will say it never happened.”

Duncan has three other books currently in the works and says she won’t allow censorship to affect what she writes, or how. You can learn more about Alice Faye Duncan and her books at alicefayeduncan.com.