We are grateful to have you join us as we celebrate the legacy of Phillis Wheatley, Margaret Walker, and Black women writers who have changed the writing landscape as we know it. The Margaret Walker Center proudly hosts the 50th anniversary reconvening of the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival as we lift up this ongoing work of Black excellence through intergenerational conversations, scholarly analysis, and creative writing.
Keynote Participants:
Jesmyn Ward, Alice Walker, Angie Thomas, Sonia Sanchez,
Nikole Hannah-Jones, Tonea Stewart, Eve Ewing,
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Imani Perry, Paula Giddings,
Honoreé Jeffers, Vinie Burrows, Maryemma Graham,
Carole Gregory, Joanne Gabbin, and Shelly Lowe
Chair: Ebony Lumumba
| Schedule of Events | |
| Wednesday, November 1 | Travel Day |
| 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. | Registration: Westin Hotel |
| 7:00 p.m.-until |
Honoring the 1973 Participants Tonea Stewart, Vinie Burrows, Carole Gregory |
| Thursday, November 2 | Jackson State University |
| 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. | Registration: Westin Hotel and JSU Campus |
| 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. |
A Tribute to Phillis Wheatley Sonia Sanchez, Honorée Jeffers, Imani Perry, Joanne Gabbin |
| 11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. | Concurrent Sessions I |
| 12:30 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. |
Banned Books Angie Thomas and Paula Giddings |
| 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. | Concurrent Readings I |
| 6:00 p.m.-until |
From Africa to America Nikole Hannah-Jones and Eve Ewing |
| Friday, November 3 | Jackson State University |
| 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. | Registration (Hotel and campus) |
| 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. |
Our People Jesmyn Ward and Charlayne Hunter-Gault |
| 11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. | Concurrent Sessions II |
| 12:30 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. |
Our Mothers’ Gardens: A Womanist Legacy Alice Walker and Ebony Lumumba |
| 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. | Concurrent Readings II |
| 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. | Authors Alley |
| 6:00 p.m.-until |
A Tribute to Margaret Walker Maryemma Graham and Shelly Lowe |
| Saturday, November 4 | Travel Day |
| Tours TBD | |
| Mississippi Symphony Orchestra Bravo Series |
Through thickest gloom look back, immortal shade, on that confusion which thy death has made.
Phillis Wheatley
In 1973, Margaret Walker hosted a groundbreaking conference for Black women writers for the bicentennial of Phillis Wheatley’s work Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Under the Black Studies Institute that Walker had founded five years earlier at Jackson State, thirty of these leading women participated in a series of lectures, roundtable discussions, poetry readings, and other events on campus.
Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Jackson State University is designated as a “higher research activity” institution by the Carnegie Foundation.
Jackson State University | 1400 John R. Lynch Street | Jackson, MS 39217 | 601-979-2282
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