|
Charles
Tisdale: Newspaper and Community Man
By C. Liegh
McInnis
Owner, publisher, and editor
of the Jackson Advocate, Charles Tisdale has made
his transition to the other side. Besides being an
excellent newspaper man, Tisdale’s thirty-year legacy is
two fold. One, he used the Jackson Advocate
to provide a voice to African Americans when they were
poorly represented in the mainstream media. Two, he
provided opportunity for most of the African American
journalist in the Jackson Metro area to be published.
Although my background is creative writing, my first
publication was an article in the Jackson Advocate
about the legislative changes in drug rehabilitation
programs. Former Mississippi Link editor and
journalist Nikki Burns and I used to discuss all the
time that at one point most of the African American
writers working at the Clarion Ledger got their
starts under Tisdale.
Despite his desire to create
a competitive paper, Tisdale remained steadfast to the
notion that for the Jackson Advocate to be
vital it must remain a community paper. For instance,
no matter what many of us went on to do, he always
treated us like we worked for the Advocate.
Once, Tisdale and many of us were at some rally for some
cause, and several of us were lingering after the
event. As I was leaving the event, Tisdale, barely
acknowledging my presence, stated to me, “Have me an
article about this by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow.” To which my
response was, “Yes, sir.” By the way, I missed the
deadline, but Tisdale was able to get it in the paper
somehow.
In fact, one of my goals as a
writer was to rise to the level of Dr Jerry W. Ward and
Dr. Ivory Paul Phillips who always have a column
reserved in the Advocate. To me, that is what it
meant to be a real writer—to be so accomplished that you
can always publish somewhere. Yet without Tisdale,
Afro-Mississippi writers would not have this goal
because Tisdale made sure that the paper survived
bombings, attacks from other media outlets, and a lack
of advertising and subscriptions. With pocket change
and a prayer, Tisdale kept the Jackson
Advocate alive so that the voice of the
Afro-Mississippian would remain alive in all of its
forms.
A complex man, Tisdale was
not afraid of controversy. He called it like he saw it
even if he was the only person who saw it that way. In
his many editorials, Tisdale not only challenged whites
whom he felt were hurting the black community, he had no
problem challenging and chastising blacks, especially
black elected officials whom he often placed in the
Brown Society. Once when my father was placed in the
Brown Society because he and Tisdale disagreed on a
decision that my father made as Executive Director of
the Hinds County Democratic Party, my father replied,
“Well, at least he told me that I was going to be in the
Brown Society over lunch.”
For the entire time my father
was in the Brown Society, Tisdale continued to publish
various articles by me as well as have lunch from time
to time with my father. At his core, Tisdale was about
the discourse, the discussion, the verbal/written
debate. He was an idea man who understood the
importance of African Americans being able to voice
their ideas, be exposed to other ideas, and make
sovereign decisions about the types of ideas that
governed and framed their lives. We will miss his fire,
his dedication, and his leadership for he made so many
of our dreams into reality while making sure that we
were represented equally and fairly.
C. Liegh McInnis is an author of seven books and a
former publisher/editor of Black Magnolias Literary
Journal. He can be contacted at Psychedelic Literature,
203 Lynn Lane, Clinton, MS 39056, (601) 925-1281,
psychedeliclit@bellsouth.net .
Sources:
PBS /
Flashpoints
* * *
* *
* * * * *
|
Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
|
* * * * *
 |
Incognegro: A Memoir of
Exile and Apartheid
By Frank B. Wilderson, III
Wilderson, a professor,
writer and filmmaker from
the Midwest,
presents a gripping account
of his role in the downfall
of South African apartheid
as one of only two black
Americans in the African
National Congress (ANC).
After marrying a South
African law student, Wilderson reluctantly
returns with her to South
Africa in the early 1990s,
where he teaches
Johannesburg and Soweto
students, and soon joins the
military wing of the ANC.
Wilderson's stinging
portrait of Nelson Mandela
as a petulant elder eager to
accommodate his white
countrymen will jolt readers
who've accepted the
reverential treatment
usually accorded him. After
the assassination of
Mandela's rival, South
African Communist Party
leader Chris Hani, Mandela's
regime deems Wilderson's
public questions a threat to
national security; soon,
having lost his stomach for
the cause, he returns to
America.
Wilderson has a
distinct, powerful voice and
a strong story that shuffles
between the indignities of
Johannesburg life and his
early years in Minneapolis,
the precocious child of
academics who barely
tolerate his emerging
political consciousness.
Wilderson's observations
about love within and across
the color line and cultural
divides are as provocative
as his politics; despite
some distracting
digressions, this is a
riveting memoir of
apartheid's last days.—Publishers
Weekly
|
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
posted 8 July 2007
|
