The weekend I met Rev. E.W. Higginbottom Sr. was the 82nd anniversary of the lynching of his then-29-year-old father Elwood, an Oxford sharecropper, on Sept. 17, 1935. Immediately after the brutal murder, young E.W., his mother and his two younger siblings had to flee Lafayette County for their own lives, and they lost touch with […]
April Grayson
April Grayson combines her commitment to racial equity and social justice with her passion for storytelling, documentary fieldwork and art practice. She serves as the Director of Community and Capacity Building for the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation (www.winterinstitute.org), where she facilitates the Welcome Table program, leads equity workshops and trainings, and oversees oral history and documentary projects. Through her work in the racial-equity field, she has collaborated with communities throughout the Deep South, especially Mississippi and New Orleans, as well as nationwide with nonprofits, museums, school districts, universities, professional organizations and corporations. Since 2017, she has worked closely with local community groups, family members of lynching victims, and the Equal Justice Initiative on lynching memorialization efforts. She is based in Oxford, Miss.. Read more at www.aprilgrayson.com.