01/06/2023
Taking place annually in “the most southern place on earth,” aka, the “ ,” the Sweat Equity Investment in the Cotton Kingdom Symposium offers a platform to honor, celebrate, and recognize the legacy of the African Americans who labored in the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta. The symposium intends to trigger discussions and provide a space where the histories and contributions of those Americans can be heard and learned from.
Born in the antebellum south, the “soul of America” came to be through the tearful occupation of planting, chopping, picking and ginning cotton, where it was then brined within a system of enslavement, sharecropping and international trade that in so many ways provided America its “greatness.” Carefully compiled from works presented at the symposia, this anthology looks to expose the tortured “cotton-pickin’ spirit” embedded in America’s soul. A spirit that is rendered in song, chants, spoken word and field hollers, and revealed in this volume through the selected articles, lyric poetry, proverbs, speeches, slave narratives and workshop proposals. The rich and varied content of this book reflects the uniqueness of not only the Mississippi Delta but also the histories of those who lived and worked there.
Cassie Sade Turnipseed is the Institute of Higher Learning’s (IHL) 2017 Mississippi Diversity Educator of the Year. A public historian, educator, and community outreach specialist Turnipseed is the founder of the Mississippi-Delta based not-for-profit Khafre, Inc., whose mandate is to honor the legacy and historic contributions of Cotton Pickers, particularly those enslaved in the American South. As executive director of Khafre, Inc. Turnipseed is the lead researcher in the development of the 'Cotton Pickers of America Monument and Historic site' in the Mississippi Delta AKA The Cotton Kingdom; and is partnering with Belart Cotton Africa, NANTAP, and several other African institutions to document the African origins of cotton, the seeds, the gin, textile manufacturing, and its medicinal uses.
Professor Turnipseed currently teaches history at Jackson State University (JSU) and serves as an adjunct professor at MVSU. Turnipseed is the inaugural director of education and outreach for the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center, in Indianola, MS; and presents lectures and workshops on the blues and the impact that sharecroppers’ cotton culture has had on global economies.
Read more and order this volume online from our website https://vernonpress.com/book/554 or major distributors such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, YBP, EBSCO, ProQuest and indexed in Bowker Books in Print, Nielsen Pub web, and Ingram Content, among others.
