“Mama Say She Had A Dream” by Lori D. Johnson won NELLE Literary Journal’s 2024 “Three Sisters Award” for creative nonfiction!!!

"Mama Say She Had A Dream" (which appears in NELLE issue #7 and won their 2024 "Three Sisters" award for creative nonfiction) is a blend of oral history and essay.  It opens with my grandmother's story about the death of her baby brother in the early 1900s.  My MaDear's story is one of several I culled and transcribed from the recorded kitchen conversations we had in 1989.

In 1995, I was able to publish a fictionalized version of the story in Obsidian II: Black Literature in Review, but I've longed to share the original story that MaDear told me--and in her own words.  I'm thrilled that after all of these years, NELLE Literary Journal has finally granted me that opportunity.

"Mama Say She Had A Dream" is also the first chapter of a larger unpublished body of work--MaDear's Memories (of Mart Road, Johnson Sub and More)--that pays homage to both my grandmother's unique story-telling abilities and our family's roots in Johnson Sub, the 48-acre Black farming community and Freedman's settlement in Memphis, Tennessee, where Ethel V. Johnson (aka MaDear) lived most of her life (1912-1999).

Mama Say She Had A Dream

by Lori D. Johnson

AN HONORABLE MENTION

The first chapter of my novel-in-progress BLOOD KIN received an honorable mention in the 2024 Chapter One Prize of the Gutsy Great Novelist Contest. The chapter was ONE of THE TOP 10 entries in a contest that had a total of 930 entries! 

If you’re interested in reading the complete first chapter of BLOOD KIN or any of the the other winners and/or honorable mentions in this year’s Gutsy Great Novelist contest, visit the link below. (You’ll find BLOOD KIN and my pic under honorable mentions).

2024 Chapter One Prize of the Gutsy Great Novelist Contest

My Family's History In "Old Whitehaven"

 Recently, I turned some of the research I've collected on my family's history into an article.  The article, "Tracing My Black Roots In Old Whitehaven" appears in the August 11, 2023 issue of StoryBoard Memphis.

The following are a few key points of "Tracing My Black Roots in Old Whitehaven."

--In 1989, I recorded my conversations with my 76-year old-grandmother about our family's history.  Among other things she shared with me--her family once lived and worked on "The McCorkle Place" which was then located in Whitehaven.

--Whitehaven is a community/residential aread located in the south-west section of Memphis, TN.  The McCorkles were one of Whitehaven's founding families.  The community's history wad documented in --TALES OF OLD WHITEHAVEN--a book written by Anna L. McCorkle in 1967.

Tales of Old Whitehaven
by Anna L. McCorkle

--One of the churches that served the Whitehaven community during the early days of its existence wad Edmondson Presbyterian Church.  In 1847, the congregation moved into a new building.  According to Anna L. McCorkle, "This building consisted of one room with a slave gallery in back.  There were twenty-five members, five of whom were colored."  

--Turns out, my grandmother's great grandmother (my 3rd great grandmother), an enslaved woman named Celia Plunkett (later Celia Plunkett Morgan) was one of the original five "colored" members of Edmondson Presbyterian Church.

--According to records compliled by David Ragland Davis in his publication EDMONDSON PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 1844-1931, Celia, described as a servant of Dr. Plunkett (John Desire Plunkett), was baptized in the church in 1854.

Edmondson Presbyterian Church 1844-1931
by David Ragland Davis

--So many odd coincidences and baffling events occured during the course of my "discovery" of Celia, I'm almost convinced SHE WANTED ME TO FIND HER . . .

--For additional details, checkout the article--"Tracing My Black Roots In Old Whitehaven"

WORDS & IMAGES . . . Hattie Mae's Harvest by Lori D. Johnson

 Sometimes mere words aren't enough.  After I finished writing "Hattie Mae's Harvest" an essay that appears in the most recent issue of Midnight and Indigo, I was inspired to create an accompanying collage.  It's been years since I've felt inspired to create something that falls within the realm of the fine arts.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm kind of rusty, but the feeling that I got while I was in the throes of putting it together was nothing short of WONDERFUL.  

The following is a snippet from the essay . . . 

An old black and white photograph of seven smiling Black women is one of my favorites.  I discovered it in 2017 on a visit with my now ninety-some-year-old Aunt Rubylene.  I don't know who took the picture; what year it might have been taken, or for what occasion.  Even though my Aunt Rubylene is in the photo, she blames her failing memory for her inability to offer any of the pertinent details.  My aunt has always been gracious and forthcoming with me, so I want to take her at her word.

You can read the rest of the work here . . . HATTIE MAE'S HARVEST.

And if you look closely at the artwork below,  you will notice that a couple of the photos described in the essay are featured in the collage.

Hattie Mae's Harvest

by 

Lori D. Johnson

THE BROOKS AVENUE SCHOOL REUNION (August 28, 2022 / MEMPHIS, TN) & Lori D. Johnson's "Johnson Sub Research"

 

I'm still marveling that my research on the Johnson Sub community in Memphis, TN played a role in making this happen.  Wish I could have been there, but from all reports, the event was a smashing success!  The organizer, George R. Williams, Sr., gave a nice presentation at Riverside Missionary Baptist Church.  The folks at the National Civil Rights Museum were wonderful hosts and treated the Brooks Avenue School crew as honored guests.  According to my parents, the tour of the Rosenwald exhibit, the luncheon and the hospitality were all top-notch.

George R. Williams, Sr.

Brooks Avenue Reunion Organizer

Riverside Missionary Baptist Church

Brooks Avenue School Reunion

August 28, 2022

Brooks Avenue School Reunion

at National Civil Rights Museum

(August 28, 2022)

If you'd like to learn more about Brooks Avenue School and its designation as a Rosenwald School, as well as how a portion of my research on Johnson Sub contributed to the reunion, click on the link below for the Commercial Appeal newspaper feature (dated Aug. 24, 2022) about the event.

"Celebrating The Impact of Rosenwald Schools"

MY CONNECTION TO TWO FREEDMEN SETTLEMENTS . . . by Lori D. Johnson

                                

                                       

       Calhoun County, MS

 

Have you ever heard of Freedom colonies, Freedmen settlements or Freedmen towns?  Probably

not, huh?  Freedom colonies and freedmen settlements/towns were the all Black

communities established by the formerly enslaved after the Civil War.  Apparently, I hold the

honor of being a descendant of two such communities--one on my mother’s side of the

family and another on my dad’s.  

The one created by my mother’s side of the family was located in Calhoun County, MS near the town of Paris (not far from Water Valley MS where my mother and her folks were

born).  The community was founded by a former slave (name unknown)  who’d been allowed

to work for pay during his enslavement. After Emancipation, he purchased land in the area

and from it grew a vibrant community.  They established a school (Bryant School) and a church

(Mt. Pleasant Church).  They had a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, a grist mill (a mill that grinds grain into flour) and they raised sheep from which they spun wool and made clothing.  Some of their descendants (Hawkins, Pearson, Reese, Shipp & Steen) erected a marker near what once was the entrance of the church’s cemetery.  (See photo above) Sadly, not that long ago, that marker “mysteriously” disappeared.

JOHNSON CHAPEL, CME

Memphis, TN

The Freedmen settlement established by my dad’s side of the family was founded in 1903 by

my great-great randfather, Prince Johnson who purchased 48 acres of land in Shelby County, TN

(in the Peter Mitchell Subdivision of Memphis ) and resold individual lots to the formerly

enslaved and their offspring.  The residents of Johnson Sub formed a community that thrived

well into the 1990s.  For me, Prince Johnson, the man my grandmother called “The Mayor”

of Johnson Sub’s 48 acres is a figure shrouded in mystery. In spite of my research, I still

don’t really know who he was or what he truly had in mind for Johnson Sub.  Given Prince's

affiliation with The Knights and Daughters of Tabor, I suspect he may have had a

self-sufficient community like Mound Bayou, MS in mind. 

Even though today Mound Bayou is considered impoverished by many, it was once prosperous

and even described by Theodore Roosevelt as “the jewel of the Delta.”  Mound Bayou was a

freedman settlement founded in 1887 and at one point had dozens of Black businesses, 3 schools,

6 churches, a bank, a Carnegie Library, and even a hospital.  

Nothing of that magnitude ever materialized in Johnson Sub, which for years was basically

a farming community and residential area. But the Sub was full of talented folks and crafts peoplelike brick masons and carpenters, some of whom built or helped build many of the homes in

and outside of the area.  In the 1920s, an uncle who lived in the Sub was instrumental in

raising funds for a Rosenwald school, Brooks Avenue School (grades 1-8) which for decades

educated Black children who lived in the Sub and surrounding area. Several family members

and residents with Johnson Sub ties taught at Brooks Avenue. Johnson Sub also was once

home to a church (Johnson Chapel CME) and in later years a small general store (owned

and run by my Aunt Vina & Uncle Fugerson) and a chartered civics organization (TheJohnson Subdivision Civics Club).

Not only is it sorta, kinda ironic that I descend from not one, but two Freedman settlements. 

But even more ironic, perhaps, is that my mother and father first met as children and while my mother was in Johnson Sub visiting her relatives. As it turns out, my mother’s relatives were Hawkins (yes, originally part of that freedmen community in Calhoun County, MS) who’d relocated from MS to TN only to settle in another freedmen settlement-- Johnson Sub!  

Just one of the many odd and interconnecting tidbits I’ve discovered in my research of my family’s

history.  

SN: If you want to know more about Freedom colonies and Freedmen settlements, check

out THE BLACK TOWNS (1979) by Norman L. Crockett or

FREEDOM COLONIES: Independent Black Texans in the Time of Jim Crow (2005/2010)

by Thad Sitton.   If you want to know more about that Freedmen community in

Calhoun County, MS, check out the book BLACK HERITAGE SITES: The South (1996) by Nancy C. Curtis, Ph.D.

If you want to know more about Johnson Sub, you need to pray or keep your fingers crossed that I find a publisher for my manuscript. 😏I’ll keep you posted. 

 

Book Notes: THAT LONELY SPELL by FRANCES PARK

 The following is an excerpt from a FB post I shared not too long ago. 

For me, reading THAT LONELY SPELL (by Frances Park) was like that point in a phone conversation with an old friend when the two of you stop laughing and dishing the dirt long enough to get quiet and venture into deeper territory.  I even found myself mentally renaming the book THOSE QUIET MOMENTS. ‘Cause really, I can see and hear so many of those essays as conversations, if not on the phone then, perhaps, late at night on a friend or relative’s deck or patio as the once hot grill is cooling and everyone else has gone inside and it’s just the two of you, swatting mosquitoes, listening to the cicadas, and sipping on a cold or chilled glass of something--wine or maybe iced tea.  So you’re sitting there right, when out of nowhere, comes a story, a retelling of an incident or a revelation that ripples through the quiet of the moment, the still of the night--the type which returns to haunt you, sometimes years later and always when you least expect it. 

But before I veer too deep into ramble mode, allow me to share a few specifics with regards to what I enjoyed about the book.  For one, I enjoyed the fact that each essay opened with a photo.  I find images and photos anchoring.  They add texture and give me a better feel for the subject matter and/or the people being discussed.  I liked the fact that most of the essays were short and to the point ‘cause let’s be honest, my attention span ain’t what it used to be.  I appreciated how Parks interlaced her experiences as a Korean American and the daughter of immigrants throughout the work which is described on the back cover as “an elegy to Park’s father, who died when the author was in her early 20s.”  

The essays I enjoyed the most included the following:  “Kiss-Kiss-Kissuni” (a dive into Park’s relationship with her grandparent’s Korean housekeeper that ends with a heavy, unexpected twist); “That Lonely Spell” (a tender tribute to life’s highs and lows); “Finding West Virginia” (a look at unfulfilled longing) and “Hey Judy” (an abrupt end to a childhood friendship that leaves lingering questions).  

There were a number of essays in the collection that moved me in some way, but probably none more than “Hey Judy.”  Having spent a large portion of my youth moving from one air base to another due to my dad’s career in the Air Force, I’ve had several experiences like the one Parks describes in “Hey Judy.”  Moments in time where you either bond or regularly interact with someone only to have them disappear and either leave you wondering whatever happened to them and/or  being stunned by what you later learn of their fate.  Over the course of my life, I’ve also known more than a few seemingly troubled souls, like Judy.  When I shared the details of “Hey Judy” with my husband, his response was, “OMG! I can totally see that as a movie.” Now, for the record, Al has never responded in such an enthusiastic manner to any of my novels, short stories or essays so suffice to say, I was a bit taken aback, lol.  

In all seriousness, I found THAT LONELY SPELL thoroughly engaging and I applaud Frances Park for owning the courage to share so many emotionally-moving chapters of her life.  

PUB DROP: A Long Overdue Update of Recent Publications by Lori D. Johnson

My apologizes for being so lax when it comes to adding new blog posts or sharing

news about my latest publications.  In some respects, my life these days resembles one

huge juggling act with balls dropping, left and right.  Even though most time I’ve

managed to keep a smile on my face, I can’t say that I’m always having fun.

But enough with the sob story.

I am proud and pleased to announce the following:

1) My short story “Shepherd’s Hell” is the lead story in Coolest American Stories 2022, an anthology that’s scheduled for publication in January of 2022.  Coolest American Stories includes stories by such heavyweights as S.A. Cosby (author of Blacktop Wasteland), Frances Park (When My Sister Was Cleopatra Moon) and Lee Martin (The Bright Forever).  The collection of cool stories is currently available for pre-order via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Itascabooks.

To be honest, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that a story of mine

is included in the lot.  A recent review of Coolest American Stories by Wayne Coster Cooper on the

College Standard includes a few highlights and descriptions of a few of the stories in the collection,

my contribution “Shepherd’s Hell” among them.

2) In May of 2021, An excerpt (chapters 2-3) from my unpublished novel

A LITTLE LIGHT was selected as one of 5 winners in the Novel Slices 2021 Contest.  You can read a portion of my excerpt as well as the excerpts of the other winners on Novel Slice’s website. 

The full excerpts are also available for purchase--$12.00 for Issue #2.

3) My essay  “Future, Past Present, And All of the Days of Infamy and Grace In-between” appeared in the May 15, 2021 issue of Adelaide Literary Magazine. 

4)  My essay “Loss of Contact” appeared in the March 3, 2021 issue of Storyboard Memphis. 

The essay is the same one that placed third in a 2019 nonfiction contest sponsored by The Charlotte Writers’ Club.

Have I covered all of the bases?  I think so.  If not, or if any additional late publication wins appear in my in-box, I will meet you back here with another update. 

NOMADLAND for the WIN!!!

I was hoping Nomadland would win for Best Picture.  The fact that it was based on a non-fiction title was a nice surprise (yes, another must-read for my collection) and probably accounted for it’s documentary-like feel.  Frances McDormand was wonderful as “Fern.” I’ve been enjoying her on-screen performances since HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge.”  McDormand’s female protagonists typically bring something other than their looks or sex appeal to the story, which is always a plus.

But what I enjoyed most about Nomadland was that it had the audacity to tell a woman’s story without allowing her to be mentally destroyed, physically hurt or killed in the process.  Fern was independent, adventurous, free-spirited and outspoken.  Typically, women like her don’t fare well on the screen.  It’s almost an unspoken or unwritten rule that such a woman will have to be shown having to pay for the crime of operating in the world, like a free woman with agency (you know, like men do most of the time). 

I promise you, I sat through that whole movie waiting for the moment when she’d be made to pay in the form of some sort of assault--whether sexual or physical--for having the gall to be a woman who called the shots in her life without answering to anyone.  At the movie’s end, I was shocked, relieved and to be honest--somewhat overjoyed that she’d survived without being harmed or stripped of her dignity.  I also knew at that moment that a smart, creative and talented woman must have been behind the making of the film.

I’m thrilled for Chole Zhao!  I can’t wait to see her next film and I truly hope she continues to be different and daring in her portrayals of woman.  For me, Nomadland was truly a refreshing and welcome change of pace.