Points of view and perspectives. In writing, point of view is the specific lens through which the narrator tells a story. Perspective is the narrator’s worldview. Both affect the reader’s reaction.

Other disciplines make use of point of view and perspective. Similarly, the orientation of the photographer, physicist, policymaker, or everyday person and their choice of lens through which to approach their subject affect the conclusion.

We can be open to changing our point of view and our perspective. This might be one of the most important choices we can make.

June 21^st was the sixty-first anniversary of the murders of Civil Rights Movement activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Their lives were brutally taken at the outset of Freedom Summer, the 1964 campaign to register Black voters and run Freedom Schools in Mississippi.

I recall them here to examine fear—then and now. How many anniversaries of their murders will it take to regain what their ultimate sacrifice helped achieve sixty-one years ago, so that we may move forward once again?

Meridian, MS has a storied past. As is surely true of every hamlet, village, town, and city in America, Meridian also has its sins. It has come through so much change in the last half century. Progressing from Jim Crow through the Civil Rights Movement, from thriving to suffering economic decline as its tax base shifted to the county through white flight. And now, struggling to rebuild itself.

An American Idol and an ascending artist just might be primed to help their hometown realize its potential, just as they are realizing their own.

Meet ascending artist Larenzo Harry and learn how his and ‘American Idol’ 2025 winner Jamal Roberts’ visions align.

Fog machines are a relic from my 1960’s childhood—a memory as unrelenting as the heat and humidity of summer in Mississippi. Aging pickup trucks with aerosol generators bolted to their beds, burning oil and belching insecticide fog—DDT. Unsuspecting children running behind them, chasing the cloud, delighting in the fog, unaware of the danger.

This spring, the mosquito control district serving the seven-county metro area of Minnesota I now call home begins its use of drones!

With technology clearly evolving, I wondered how the overarching metaphor for my Freedom Summer-centric historical novel The FOG MACHINE is holding up.

Explore that question with me. Enjoy an excerpt from my novel. And connect the topic to Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine” from their 1975 Wish You Were Here album.

Why did Paul Simon write the song “Cool Papa Bell?” Who was he? What can he and the song teach us about today?

Like so many, I imagine a better world. Some of us believe we are on a path towards things being better. Others of us believe just the opposite. Dire consequences aside, this schism is deeply painful and alienating.

Listening with fresh ears to Paul Simon’s “Cool Papa Bell” made me think.

Extending the learning I did about the Negro Leagues for The FOG MACHINE made me admire James Thomas Bell even more. What a feat—to be known for one’s kindness just as much as for one’s abilities!

As a writer, I find that the tension inherent in choosing when to lean into researching and when to hold fast in writing mode never goes away. I feel gratitude each time it appears I’ve chosen wisely.

In today’s world, there’s a similar tension between staying informed and engaged and wanting to remain oblivious as a means of preserving sufficient creative bandwidth to enable me to write.

For this post, I’ve chosen Substack newsletter author Joyce Vance (Civil Discourse) and lead vocalist and primary songwriter Florence Welch (Florence & the Machine) to help me explore that tension and its sidekick fear.

I’ve been deliberating for a while now about how to tell the story for my second book. Worrying that I wouldn’t choose the best way to tell it.

Consider how five authors with differing perspectives tell five distinctive stories about Freedom Summer. Then see how taking time to define and answer the question underlying my fretting—How many ways are there to tell a story—has been liberating.

This meme has been circulating on social media offering one reason for saying “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.” It’s a reason I had not considered.

Read on as I explore intentions behind choosing to say “Happy Holidays” and share an “outtake” from The FOG MACHINE to illustrate my own intention.

Thank you for reading “Stories from Civil Rights History”(C) this year. May each and every one enjoy happy holidays.

A recent interview for my next book has me pondering what we think we know and what information we decide is important to seek. I’m thinking as an author yet feeling that these questions apply in all our lives.

That “interview” with Mr. Frank Dickey, Harris High Class of 1962, became a more than two-hour fabulous conversation. Read about the many unexpected surprises…

Travel back to 2007 as I recall another investigative effort, to educate myself about Chicago’s Reform synagogues in support of Zach Bernstein’s character becoming an integral part of my story…

Then consider what this means to you—whether you are a writer or not: Is it worth it to sweat the small stuff?

I lost my youngest brother this summer. His passing was unexpected, and its causes are unknown.

The loss of him and the knowledge that this mystery will never be unraveled have almost crushed me. His absence, more like a vanishing, and the inordinate frustration of not knowing why constituting a weight like higher g-forces on a roller coaster during acceleration or sharp turns.

Feeling unmoored, I turned to my personal totem: storytelling. I immersed myself in writing my brother’s eulogy and planning his celebration of life. Reminiscing with family and friends. Gathering memories.

But as I lived that celebration with those who loved him and reflected in its wake, I came away with so much more…

When the July Zinn Education Project newsletter featuring “What Teachers Are Saying” about teaching People’s History appeared in my Inbox, I was thrilled to find Cristina Tosto using the “Teaching SNCC” lesson at Pascagoula High School in Mississippi.

I immediately reached out to ask if we might speak. I wanted to know how she was faring in these challenging times for the American public education system and what I could do to support her.

Our conversation did not disappoint. But I learned some hard truths. Among Cristina’s peers, many were giving up teaching. And, though ever hopeful, Cristina acknowledged experiencing disheartenment over increasing student apathy.

And so, I determined to write this post, in the hope that at least one reader will resolve to act—on behalf of our magnificent teachers and precious children. To learn more about active learning and critical thinking. To become involved in local school boards. To speak out in support and encouragement. … To be part of building—becoming “another brick in the wall”—a public education system that works for the betterment of our children and our society.

On July 14, I witnessed the end of an era.

Near tiny Pomeroy, Ohio, I experienced THE last Fur Peace Ranch acoustic concert by Hot Tuna—the duo of fingerstyle guitarist and vocalist Jorma Kaukonen, and creator of his own style of bass playing Jack Casady.

I couldn't have known when I agreed to travel to the concert that I would experience magic there...

I love freedom schools! I love everything about them.

I wish I could have attended a freedom school. And I wish our public education system incorporated the essential aspects of freedom schools. Perhaps that’s why, in writing The FOG MACHINE, I chose to have my character twelve-year-old Joan Barnes visit the Meridian Freedom School with her physician father.

Freedom Summer created martyrs and heroes as it laid the foundation for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But since the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision gutted Section 5 of the act, more and more states have enacted laws restricting voter access. At least 29 states have enacted 62 restrictive voting laws since the 2020 election alone, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. This whittling away of what is arguably the most significant piece of civil rights legislation ever passed underscores the need to know the history of Freedom Summer 1964.