Root and Word explores the intersection of Hoodoo practice and creative writing. Through prompts, rituals, and storytelling, this channel helps you write with intention, lineage, and power. The page is an altar. The word is work.

I’ve come to the conclusion that whiteness is something like a drug.  It’s “that boy.” It’s “that girl.” It’s “that white stuff.” It’s every other euphemism that I could list all day long, and it was a recent conversation with a white liberal that made me come to this comparison. A fr...

In a little under 2 weeks you will be able to take free 1917 East St Louis race riot tours, view a lovely Art Exhibit, and witness a powerful panel of living descendants of families impacted by the 1917 East St Louis race massacre.  On Saturday the 21st and Sunday the 22nd beginning at 10 […]...

It was doomed from the start The photo above is of me and Ms. Elizabeth Eckford in 2024.   Ms. Eckford was once the teen whose photo below is rumored to have made James Baldwin return from France. You likely know the photo, because like the image of the protestors at lunch counters having sugar...

Yesterday I found myself weeping in my African American Women’s literature course. I am not ashamed. Although I cannot recall a time that I’ve wept in the classroom before, as a poet who performs embodied work about which I feel very deeply, it was not surprising to me that the tears fell. We are...

But you will be. Like one of their primary artistic ancestors, Sun Ra, the No Tears Project has lived through the worst this country has to offer and managed to alchemize it into art that is both ancient and fresh.  The album— Humanitics —  digs (via a tight offering of eight tracks) back in...

In her poem, “13 Ways of Looking at a Black Girl,” Morgan Parker recounts — in an almost propulsive series of eruptions — images associated with black girls. The poem begins with the phrase “at risk,“ and ends with the word “lost.“ Parker names two enslaved ancestors — Sally Hem...

**For Immediate Release** **Dr. Treasure Shields Redmond Appointed as SIUE Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow** **[Edwardsville, Illinois] – [June 17, 2024]** – Dr. Treasure Shields Redmond, an esteemed poet, professor, and community arts organizer, has been appointed as the SIUE Chancellor�...

DM me to be added to the list. Pass this on to any East Side (Southern Illinois) based creatives you know!