The Toni Morrison Society’s “Bench by the Road Project” comes to Mississippi in honor of Margaret Walker Alexander during Jackson State University’s 9th Annual Creative Arts Festival.
The name “Bench by the Road” is taken from Morrison’s remarks in a 1989 interview with World magazine where she spoke of the absences of historical markers that help remember the lives of Africans who were enslaved.
Poet Nikky Finney will be the keynote speaker during the festival, which will be April 10-11. This year’s festival is titled “Margaret Walker — This Is My Century” to mark the centennial of the life of the late author and JSU professor Margaret Walker.
“She is a perfect fit for the festival,” said Dr. Robert Luckett, director of JSU’s Margaret Walker Center for the Study of the African-American Experience, which is coordinating the festival. This is “because she represents the generation of black artists — and artists in general — who were inspired by Margaret which is evident in the foreword she wrote for This is My Century which came out last year.”
A South Carolina native, Finney was a child of activists, coming of age during the civil rights and Black Arts Movements. At Talladega College, nurtured by Hale Woodruff’s Amistad murals, Finney began to understand the powerful synergy between art and history.
Finney has authored four books of poetry: “Head Off & Split “(2011); “The World Is Round” (2003); “Rice” (1995); and “On Wings Made of Gauze” (1985).
Holding the John H. Bennett Jr. Chair in Southern Letters and Literature at the University of South Carolina, Finney also authored “Heartwood” (1997), edited “The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South” (2007), and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets.
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Creative Arts Festival:
Friday and Saturday, April 10-11
JSU Student Center
Nikky Finney, Keynote speaker