On June 6, 1997 Henry Francis Hays was executed for the racial murder of Michael Donald . . .

Christal Cooper – 1,483

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Guest Blogger

Poet Jacqueline Trimble

“The Violence of Ordinary Days”

            The Violence of Ordinary Days

                       

The state of Alabama will electrocute Henry Francis Hays for beating [Michael Donald] a black man to death 16 years ago, and then hanging his body from a tree. . . . It is a story of contrasts: The murderer, a white man, grew up in a home filled with hate and violence. The victim was reared by a loving mother and doting older siblings.

            From Frances Coleman, Mobile Register, 1st June, 1997

                       

When a rabbit, or anything else, bumping along the dark road dies under a wheel, the thrill

is like taking a sharp turn into oncoming traffic, then off a bridge.  Suddenly, I am the rabbit,

scampering across the field; the hind leg of a bull bashes in my head. As I go down

I see a twelve year old boy riding a bike along the street.  A gun falls from his pocket,

discharges loudly.  He picks it up, reloads, continues on his way.  My car continues

in a quick, ungraceful arc off the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where long ago marchers felt

a rage of  clubs and fists, a few dogs for good measure.  Years later a woman stood

on that historic bloody spot calling to a daughter a thousand miles away.  Below her, the river

is filled with bodies, their lips as blue as blue jays.  She slipped across the rails as simply

as the boy slipped more bullets in his gun, and my hand once slipped across  my sister’s open

face for saying, “Bitch.”  I struck her twice, the feel of my palm against her skin, delicious, a

silken purple scarf I feathered across your trusting neck.  I might have killed you then, kicked

you beyond a bloody pulp, hanged your body by the Krispy Kreme; instead, I left you for a

 banker, the same day the State put a wayward boy to death.   Sorry, but this is who I am: 

a thoughtless woman who never swerves in time to save a rabbit, but drives on along

the darkening road, the sun at her back, the wounded in her wake.

            This poem began, as many of my poems begin, as two separate ideas at two separate moments of genesis years apart.

         Moment one – I was driving down a dark road one night, and hit (or almost hit) a rabbit which appeared in my headlights.  I was too afraid too look back and see if I had indeed hit it, and I thought living every day is a violent act.  We are  always doing damage to something or someone whether intentionally or accidentally and much of the time we are blithely unaware or unconcerned about or too afraid to look at the violence around us until it affects us.

         Moment two – I watched a documentary about the Southern Poverty Law Center and the lynching of Michael Donald.  I was struck by how the young men who killed him could not themselves explain why they had done it except to say they had been consumed by the violence rhetoric to which they had been exposed.

         Years later I read the account from which the poem’s epigram comes, noted the violent upbringing of Hays and thought about how violence begets violence.  That it is pervasive, daily and ordinary.  Though Hays becomes famous for the brutality and historical significance of his act, he had lived a history of violence long before any part he played in Michael Donald’s death. 

         But don’t we all have our own histories of violence?  Isn’t the violence connected?  To what?  A larger, ordinary fabric of violence?

         At the time I wrote this poem, I had this idea about living as a violent act.  The first iteration of the poem was actually called “Random Violence.”  I wanted to write a poem of long lines that seemed to merge into each other to enact the notion we live  along a constant string of violence, seen in incidents small and great – hitting creatures in the road way, car accidents, suicide, domestic familial violence, historical acts, emotional violence, and so on.

         

         We are surrounded by violence, we are victims of violence, and we perpetuate violence, intentionally and unintentionally.  The rabbit incident I spoke of above was my starting point:

When a rabbit, or anything else, bumping along the dark road dies uynder a wheel, the thrill is like taking a sharp turn into oncoming traffic, then off a bridge.  Suddenly, you are the rabbit,

         I had the first part of the line immediately – when a rabbit, or anything else, bumping along the dark road dies under a wheel – but then it occurred to me that this moment would not be scary, that the poem needed to make its own turn as well to get the idea that there is a visceral, emotional payoff to violence, a “thrill,” and a sort of deliciousness that allows to live with it.

         Once I made the move, I had the structure of the poem.  Every line would take us on a slightly different path or connection through the thrill, horror and joy of all sorts of violence because though we often shrink from it, we also are fascinated by it.

         The repetition in the poem connects the random acts of violence to each other rhetorically, and the emotion which undergirds each act is slightly incongruous with how we want to think of violence.

         So, the poem went on like that.  I didn’t want to differentiate among the different types of violence.  I didn’t want to hierarchize them.  I wanted small acts and cataclysmic ones to be all of a piece, thus a random accident is connected to “Bloody Sunday” is connected to a woman committing suicide is connected to the speaker’s slapping her sister is connected to leaving a lover – it’s different and the same.

         The initial poem contained no reference to Hays or the twelve-year-old boy and is written in the second person.  But I was not satisfied.

         

         Some poems come to me quickly and feel finished.  Some get put aside for years.  “The Violence of Ordinary Days’ is a poem that got put aside for years, and then I read two articles – one was about Henry Francis Hays and the other was about pervasive and systematic urban violence among preteens and teens.  The articles were not related in any way, but they clicked in my head as being related and as being the missing parts of my poem.

         I changed it to the first person.  I wanted the speaker to embody all of those who had intentionally perpetrated violence, those who had experienced the devastation of it in various forms, and those who continue to do it with acceptance that this is “who I am.”

         I added the lines about the twelve year old boy – a found piece form the article or urban teen violence that recounts how the writer sees a boy on a bicycle riding down the street drop a gun pick it up and reload as if the child were picking up a dropped bag.  It was disturbing and fascinating that we live in a time when twelve year old children on bicycles carry guns and think nothing of reloading them on a public street.   The juxtaposition of the bicycle and the loaded gun took two ordinary things and made them extraordinary.

         The Hays piece seemed to connect the past to more recent events, and I thought at the same time Hays is being put to death for his violence, a woman is breaking the hear of her lover.  Again, two events connected only in that they share (or could share) the same moment in history.  So  I put the choice that Hays made in the woman’s hands – beat a man to a bloody pulp and hang him by the Krispy Kreme – but had her make a different choice in order to show that the difference between the two acts, though widely divergent in intent and result, are not as distant as we would like to imagine.

         In other words, we make violence choices every day, we are all capable of horrendous violence, and yet we comfort ourselves by saying at least I didn’t do a thing as terrible as that.  So, we drive on oblivious to the destruction we leave behind.  We are all, to some extent, predator and prey (bull and rabbit), victim and perpetrator.  And the thing that separates which we are, is not as solid as we imagine.

        

*Poet Jacqueline Trimble teaches literature and chairs the Department of Languages and Literatures at Alabama State University.  She has been reading writing poetry since she was six years old.  Her first poetry book collection American Happiness, published by New South Books, will be released later this year.  For more information contact Trimble via email at jtrimble@alasu.edu, or call 334-229-8501.

Photo Description and Copyright Information

Photos 1, 4, and 6

Jacqueline Trimble giving a poetry reading at the Alabama Book Festival in April of 2014.

Attributed to Jeanine Thompson.

Copyright granted by Jacqueline Trimble. 

Photo 2

Article clip on the death of Michael Donald.

Photo 3

Michael Donald image and summery of his death, Hays’ trial, and Mrs Donald’s lawsuit which she won.

Fair Use Under the United States Copyright Law

Photo 5

Henry Francis Hays.

Fair Use Under the United States Copyright Law.

Robert Gray's Poem "THE DAY I WAS BORN" and film "MOBILE IN BLACK AND WHITE"

Christal Cooper 2,046 Words

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A Dance To Remember Between

“Poem” and “Documentary Film”

"The line of the dancer: If you watch (Mikhail) Baryshnikov and you see that line, that's what the poet tries for. The poet tries for the line, the balance."

Maya Angelou in 2008

“The poetic mode of documentary moves away from the "objective" reality of a given situation or people to grasp at an inner "truth" that can only be grasped by poetical manipulation.”

Bill Nichols from his notes “Modes of Documentary”

One specific night in 2009 was just another night for poet Robert Gray – a time to go to sleep, like he did the night before and the night before that. 

         He doesn’t remember if he was awake trying to go to sleep, asleep waking up, or if he was half asleep, half awake?  All he knows is that something extraordinary happened, something that most poets only dream about.   And it all began as a thought.

         “The thought of always seeming to be asked what it was like to hold that fire hose popped into my head.”

         He tried to push the thought away, and focus on sleeping, but then the thought turned to ideas and images swimming through his brain.

                 

                  whenever i say i’m from alabama

                  people seem to want to ask

                  what it was like to hold that fire hose

                  if I ever had to answer i’d tell them

                  i was born the day that happened

                  they seem to want to ask

                  what it was like to bomb that church

                  and kill those little girls

                  i was born that day as well

         Gray, born on April 8, 1965, didn’t know where those two stanzas came from – he just knew that they were words baptized in his brain.

         Gray decided to get out of bed with one thing in mind – to write those two stanzas down before he forgot them.  He got out of bed and typed the two stanzas into his laptop; but soon, he was typing in more stanzas.  He continued typing for about 30 minutes to an hour, and then it was finished.

                 

                  i was born the day they marched across

                  the edmund pettus bridge

                  the day Wallace made his stand

                  the day martin had his dream

                  the day he saw the mountaintop

                  and the day after that

                  i was born innocent

                  free of all the blood

                  shed that day

                  but i was born into blood

                  i still am washing from my hands

         “It’s really almost like I didn’t even write it, but rather just recorded it.  I’ve done very little to it since.  I love it when poems happen like that.  I wish they would happen more often.”

         Gray and “The Day I Was Born” had a one-year courtship – not so strange that a poem chooses a poet as a companion.   

         One year later, in 2012, Gray (who is Manager of Faculty Development Services in the Innovation in Learning Center and English teacher at the University of South Alabama) had just wrapped up a meeting of Mobile United’s Race Relations Committee at All Saints Episcopal Church when he was approached by the director of Mobile United: “Would he be interested in interviewing people about race relations in Mobile and then posting the interviews on a website?” 

Gray said yes and thus became the director, producer, writer, and editor of Mobile In Black And White.

         Is it possible that the poetry gods are matchmakers – encouraging humanity to match-make one living art form with another?   In this case “The Day I Was Born” danced with Mobile In Black and White. 

         “The two things were totally unrelated, but I decided fairly early on that “The Day I Was Born” should be part of the film.”

         Mobile In Black And White was a totally different experience for Gray than “The Day I Was Born.” 

         “There was no clear process for the film, mostly because the final shape of the project kept evolving (and I’m not even sure if it’s finished shifting yet).”

         “The Day I Was Born” was created in one hour while Mobile In Black And White kept evolving on its own. 

 “It was going to be interviews on a website, and then it was going to be short, thematic segments that combined bits from multiple interviews, and then it became longer segments, and then it became a feature film, and now it’s looking like multiple kinds of segments and possibly multiple features.”

         Another complicated aspect is that Gray is not a documentary filmmaker by trade, but a poet, teacher, and an academic. 

         Gray and his team approached it like a qualitative research project by gathering data through a very specific interview protocol, coding it, and then trying to make sense out of it.

         One hundred people were interviewed and participated in Mobile In Black And White  – attorneys, teachers, poets, writers, educators, politicians, businessmen and businesswomen, consultants, historians, curators, and religious leaders.  (List of participants is at the end of this article). 

         “We had several lists of people—those people in town who we just had to interview, those expert voices we really wanted to interview, etc.—but I’m not sure how much that affected who we actually did interview.  We lucked into a lot of great people.”

         Initially, each participant was asked five questions, then, based on their responses, more questions were presented to them.  

“For a few interviewees, we came up with additional questions, which was because we were typically interviewing that person because they had expertise in a particular area, so we would ask them specifically about that (e.g., Peggy McIntosh on white privilege or Morris Dees on the Michael Donald incident).” 

Gray viewed each interview, grouped the clips by topic, and then created segments by piecing the clips together in a way that made sense, artistically and literally.  He would then find visuals to break up the stream of talking interviews.

Mobile In Black And White is not your typical documentary film – decisions were deliberately made to not have a narrator, not have a bad guy, not have cheap emotional manipulation, and to have numerous individual stories.

“Our purposes were about starting conversations that lead to change, and we felt very strongly that following the conventional patterns would work against us.  We knew that not following them would work against us as well, but we still think we made the right decisions there.”

         It was decided that Mobile In Black And White should be made into a feature-length film, but Gray knew he needed someone with more experience in video editing, but was not sure of whom to turn to. 

Then Gray’s wife Kim and Brian Butler’s wife rekindled their friendship after being out of touch for twenty years, when a mutual friend was in need.  The two families spent time together.

         “Brian and I started talking about what we do for a living, and when I said I was just starting to work on a documentary on race relations in Mobile, he said he was a video editor for the TV station in Pensacola.  He was very interested in what we were trying to do and offered to help however he could.  He had helped all along with certain parts of the project, but for the feature, he did a great deal of polishing work.”

         Gray, Butler, and Joél Lewis discussed the specific aspects they wanted to explore for the film.  Joél’s primary role was to provide guidance and feedback.  She also played a huge role in the in the decision making process throughout the project's history, providing great wisdom and insight to our thinking on what the project should be.

“She played a huge role in shaping the message, and perhaps more importantly, in policing the message, making sure that we didn’t push too hard against the audience we were trying to reach.”

After almost four years and Gray spending 2000 hours on the film, Mobile in Black And White, in association with the University of South Alabama, Mobile United and the History Museum of Mobile, had its first private premier on September 25, 2013 at the University of South Alabama. 

The official open-to-the-public premier was at the Crescent Theater in Mobile, Alabama on January 19, 2014. 

Despite the attention garnered by the feature, however, Mobile In Black And White is primarily intended to be viewed as four 40-minutes segments, with a structured conversation amongst the audience following each segment.

“We still see the segments and the conversations they foster as the heart of the project, however.  We believe that is where the work will actually get done.  The feature is primarily intended as a vehicle to drive people to the segments by bringing publicity and credibility to the project.”

Gray was pleasantly surprised at the criticism he received because he was expecting something more and harsher. 

“We’ve been told it’s too intellectual, that it doesn’t have enough conflict in it, that it needs more victims, that it doesn’t show “the other side.”  As I mentioned earlier, we broke a lot of rules.  We didn’t follow the expected formula.”

The one thing Gray was not expecting was to receive a small grant from a local community foundation only to have that foundation react in an unexpected way.

“The foundation had gotten some money from a larger foundation to pursue “social justice” initiatives.  When the board saw the first segment of our (admittedly gentle) film, they put an end to such initiatives and said they don’t want to do anything else like that…”

One of the criticisms received that Gray does not understand is that the film lacks emotion.

“I still marvel at how we can have poetry by Natasha Trethewey, Sonia Sanchez, and Audre Lorde, and others, yet people can say there isn’t enough emotion in the film as though the poetry were invisible…”

Despite this, most of the responses have been incredibly positive and reaffirming.

“The film deals with a very touchy subject, one that most people don’t want to discuss, especially moderate and conservative whites.  So most of the people who have voluntarily come to see it have been predisposed to being sympathetic to the cause.”

Mobile In Black and White is not a biographical or autobiographical film on Gray; but nonetheless he felt emotionally involved in the film and the film’s message. 

Gray’s paternal ancestors lived in Alabama as far back as the 1700s; and his maternal ancestors lived in Alabama since 1930.   He was raised in Sylacauga, Alabama, the place of his first interracial memory, when he was in the first grade, wanting to invite his friend, an African American, to spend the night at his house.

“I was told that such a thing would not be proper.  African Americans were a significant part of the population in Sylacauga.  They were a part of every place I went.  I would later realize that, for the vast majority of them, those places were hierarchically arranged, but it was so discursively ingrained that I didn’t know to notice.”                  

         Gray finds the last fifteen minutes of the film the most emotional – when Karlos Finley speaks how we can move forward by recognizing that they are all our children.  Perhaps, as Gray watches the last fifteen minutes, he thinks of his friend he wanted to invite to his house, but couldn’t, all because of the color of his skin.

         “It still gets me, even though I’ve seen that clip thousands of times.” 

         Perhaps the most difficult part of the film was to edit out clips that Gray felt were beneficial, but had to be cut out due to length requirements.

         “For instance, john powell gives a wonderful explanation about how white people’s concepts of individuality and freedom are profoundly racial.  We just leave it at that in the film, but his explanation was just too long and sophisticated.  We felt it would lose people.  There are also some great out takes, things that were just too edgy.  But the thing I hated to leave out most was probably Peggy McIntosh’s listing of ways that white privilege plays out in our everyday lives.  I just couldn’t make them fit.”

         Mobile in Black and White was named one of the Top 50 Research, Scholarly, or Creative Works in the history of the University of South Alabama and named Mod-Mobilian Documentary of the Year for 2013.  It has been accepted at five film festivals around the country and nominated for Best Documentary in each of them.

         For more information on the film go to  (http://mobileinblackandwhite.org), and to contact Gray via email at rmgray@southalabama.edu or grayrobe@comcast.net;

PARTICIPANTS OF MOBILE IN BLACK AND WHITE

1.

Adrian Kimbrough 032912, Attorney, New Orleans, LA

2.

Aimee Nguyen 022312, Mobile Housing Board

3.

Alice Kracke 082510, Department of English, USA

4

Allen Perkins 070213, Department of Family Medicine, USA

5

Anthony Outler 022011, College of Education, Georgia State

6

April Dupree-Taylor 120212, Department of Communication, USA

7

Becky Atkinson 021911, College of Education, Alabama

8

Beverly Cooper, Consultant, Mobile

9

Brenda Juarez 052410, College of Education, USA

10

Bruce Alford 091710, Department of English, USA

11

Bryan Stephenson 083010, Equal Justice Initiative, Montgomery

12

Carl Cunningham 013111, Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, USA

13

Carla Wallace 092410, Fairness Campaign, Louisville, KY

14

Carmen Harris 031211, Department of History, USC Upstate

15

Chip Herrington 080310, Attorney, Mobile

16

Chiquita McCall 091211, Accounting Student, USA

17

Christopher Viscardi 021111, Religious Studies/Hispanic Ministries, SHC

18

David Alsobrook 020811, Museum of Mobile

19

Denise McAdory 020911, Department of Sociology, USA

20

Dom Soto 081010, Attorney, Mobile

21

Dora Finley 010611, African American History Trail, Mobile

22

Dushaw Hockett 092510, Center for Community Change, Washington DC

23

Ellen Sims 061510, Open Table, Mobile

24

Errol Crook 080610, Center for Health Communities, USA

25

Facing Race 2010: Engaging White People, Segment with Tim Rice and

26

Scott Winn

27

Foster Dickson 080210, Writer/Teacher, Montgomery

28

Frank Hardy 083010, Artist/Activist, Montgomery

29

Fred Richardson 072910, Mobile City Council

30

Frye Gaillard 052410, Department of History, USA

31

Gary Delgado 092410, Visiting Scholar, UC Berkeley

32

Hank Aaron 042211, Atlanta Braves

33

Harold Dodge 090111, College of Education, USA

34

Hattie Myles 030411, College of Medicine, USA

35

Ingie Givens 021911, College of Education, Alabama

36

Jake Adam York 041611, Department of English, University of Colorado, Denver

37

Jake Adam York 082111, Department of English, University of Colorado, Denver

38

Jan Love 042211, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

39

Jared Hurvitz 073010, Department of Criminal Justice, USA

40

Jeremiah Newell 082610, Mobile Area Education Foundation

41

Jim Flowers 012011, All Saints Episcopal Church, Mobile

42

Jim Flowers 052410, All Saints Episcopal Church, Mobile

43

Jimmy Knight 072910 1, Mobile Community Action

44

Joan Reede 101012, Harvard Medical School

45

Jerry Rosiek , 0401213, Education, University of Oregon

46

Joe Johnson 083112, Mount Hebron Church, Mobile

47

Joe Morton 083010, State Superintendent of Education, Montgomery

48

John Powell 032912, Legal Studies, UC Berkeley

49

Joycelyn Finley-Hervey, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, USA

50

Judith Smits 020811, Quest for Social Justice, Mobile

51

Julia Freeman 092410, Organizing Apprecticeship Project, MN

52

Karlos Finley 010611, Attorney, Mobile

53

Kern Jackson 052410, Department of English, USA

54

Kern Jackson 081012, Department of English, USA

55

Kimberly Pettway 072512, Department of Social Work, USA

56

Lance Hill 061410, Southern Institute for Education and Research, Tulane

57

Latitia McCane 031512, Bishop State Community College

58

Leida Javier-Ferrell 020311, Center for Workforce Development, Mobile

59

Luke Coley 071510, Attorney, Mobile

60

Marc Burnette 071510 1, Canterbury Episcopal Chapel, Tuscaloosa

61

Mark Berte 090110, Mobile Area Education Foundation

62

Mary McDade 020911, Retired Hairdresser, Mobile

63

Mel McKiven 052410, Department of History, USA

64

Merceria Ludgood 011111, Mobile County Commission

65

Merceria Ludgood 052510, Mobile County Commission

66

Michael Eric Dyson 011813, Department of Sociology, Georgetown, University

67

Michael Williams 031611, Chief of Police, Mobile Police Department

68

Mike Mitchell 021111, Dean of Students, USA

69

Mills Thornton 031011, Department of History, University of Michigan

70

Morris Dees 080111, Southern Poverty Law Center

71

Nashira Baril 111712, Boston Health Commission

72

Natasha Trethewey 082111, Department of English, Emory University

73

Nicole Carr 073010, Department of Sociology, USA

74

Nirmala Erevelles 071510 1, College of Education, Alabama

75

Pam Adams 010711, Castlen Elementary School, Grand Bay

76

Paul Landry 021911, School of Law, Alabama

77

Peggy McIntosh 052411, Wellesley Centers for Women

78

Phil Carr 020911, Department of Anthropology, USA

79

PT Paul 071910, Poet, Spanish Fort

80

Ramona Hill 052410, VP, SHC

81

Randall Williams 080210, New South Books, Montgomery

82

Ravi Howard 092810, Novelist, Mobile

83

Rhina Guillen-Gomez 020911, Hispanic Ministries, Mobile

84

Ricardo Woods 062212, Attorney, Mobile

85

Rinku Sen 052411, Applied Research Center

86

Rose Johnson 051910, Mobile Country DHR

87

Sam Fisher, 071213, Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, USA

88

Scott Winn 092510, School of Social Work, University of Washington

89

Scotty Kirkland 081010, USA Archives

90

Shakti Butler 092410, Filmmaker, Oakland

91

Sonia Sanchez 041611, Department of English, Temple University

92

Sonya Floyd 080310, Chastang Middle School, Prichard

93

Stephen Black 071610 1, Impact Alabama, Tuscaloosa

94

Steve Sullivan 060512, AIDB, Mobile

95

Sydney Raine 080410, Mobile Works

96

Terry Keleher 092510, Applied Research Center, Chicago

97

Tim Wise 092510, Anti-Racism Activist, Nashville

98

Tommy Bice 083010, Deputy State Superintendent of Education, Montgomery

99

Tres Stefurak 081810, College of Education, USA

100

Vicky Robertson 020911, Hispanic Ministries, Mobile

101

Wayne Flynt 100311, Department of History, Auburn University

PHOTOGRAPH DESCRIPTION AND COPYRIGHT INFO

Photo 1

President Barack Obama presenting Maya Angelou with the President Medal of Freedom

February 2011

White House Photo

Public Domain

Photo 2

Bill Nicholas during a seminar at the Central European University in Budapest

June 2013

Photograph attributed to Slavik Bihun

GNU Free Documentation License

CCASA 3.0 Unported License.

Photo 3

Polyhumnia dancing.

Statue from Rome in the 2^nd Century A.D.

Polyhmnia is the Muse of sacred poetry, sacred hymn, dance, eloquence, agriculture, pantomime, geometry, and meditation.

In Bibliotheca historica, Diodorus Siculus wrote, “Polyhymnia, becauseher great (polle) praises (humnesis), she brings distinction to writers whose works have won for them immortal fame.”

Photograph of statue attributed to Chris O

CCASA 3.0 Unported License

Photo 4

Image of Robert Gray interposed with The Mobile Register’s article on the church bombing.
Copyright granted by Robert Gray.

Photo 5

Image of Robert Gray interposed with The Mobile Register’s article on the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Copyright granted by Robert Gray

Photo 6

Robert Gray giving a poet reading in the night.

Copyright granted by Robert Gray

Photo 7

Movie poster for Mobile In Black and White.

Photo 8

Robert Gray 
Copyright granted by Robert Gray

Photo 9

Movie poster for Mobile In Black and White

Photo 10
Brian Butler on December 27, 2013.
Photograph attributed to Jessica Butler
Copyright granted by Brian Butler

Photo 11

Robert Gray, Delores Fisher, and Joél Lewis at the San Diego Black Film Festival.

Copyright granted by Robert Gray.

Photo 12

Brian Butler, Robert Gray, and Joél Lewis at the premier of Mobile In Black And White at the Crescent Theater.

Copyright granted by Robert Gray

Photo 13

Movie poster of Mobile In Black And White

Photo 14

Natasha Trethewey signing her book Native Guard at the University of Michigan.

March 30, 2011

Attributed to Jalissa Gray

CCASA 3.0 Unported

Photo 15

Sonia Sanchez reading at Northern Virginia Community College

March 20, 2013

Photograph attributed to SlowKing4

Creative Commons License:  Attribution Non-commercial Unported 3.0

Photo 16

Audre Lorde in 1980 in Austin, Texas.

Attributed to K.Kendall

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Unported License

Photo 17

Robert Gray, age 3, and brother Drew in July of 1968.

Copyright granted by Robert Gray.

Photo 18.

Karlos Finley

Copyright granted by Karlos Finley

Photo 19
Brian Butler's daughter in her swing.
Photograph attributed to Brian Butler.
Copyright granted by Brian Butler. 

Photo 20

Robert Gray and Joél Lewis being interviewed by Channel 15.

Copyright granted by Robert Gray

Photo 21

Robert Gray.

Copyright granted by Robert Gray