OPINION: JUBILEE: A return to my roots
By Dr. Selika Sweet
JA Guest Writer
The Mississippi Book Festival has long given Jackson residents an opportunity to gather and celebrate literature. This year, the 60th anniversary of Margaret Walker Alexander’s Jubilee gave me a special reason to reconnect with old friends and revisit memories of the neighborhood where I grew up.
On September 24, I attended the anniversary celebration at Jackson State University’s F. D. Hall Music Center. Familiar faces, good conversation, and a lovely reception featuring wine, spinach dip, shrimp, and chicken wings made for a memorable evening. As I enjoyed the gathering, my thoughts kept returning to the streets of my childhood.
My family lived in a green, Western-style house at the corner of Missouri and Guynes streets. As a young girl, I often rode my bicycle along Guynes Street, now named Margaret Walker Alexander Drive. A short distance from our home, on the right, stood Dr. Alexander’s two-story house, with its white wooden siding and red brick.
I would stop my bicycle and look up at that house, wondering what she was doing inside. Was she writing at a desk or sitting at the kitchen table? Was another story taking shape? What characters filled her imagination?
I knew little about being a writer, but the thought fascinated me. A woman in my own neighborhood was creating stories that people far beyond Jackson would read. I never imagined how much those moments would mean to me years later.
Our family’s connection to the Alexanders extended beyond the neighborhood. Our friend Norma was married to Dr. Alexander’s son, Siggy, and they had three boys. A bright and accomplished woman, Norma graduated from Tougaloo College, as did many members of my family. I took a different path and attended Dillard University.
Norma worked as a speechwriter for governors and helped care for her mother-in-law. Her friendship with my mother also became part of another important chapter in our neighborhood’s history.
Medgar Wiley Evers lived on our street, too. My mother and Norma helped lead the effort to turn his home into a museum. Norma used her considerable writing skills to prepare the grant application that secured $250,000 for the project. Mrs. Evers donated the property to their alma mater, Tougaloo College. Together, these efforts helped preserve the home and legacy of a man who gave his life for civil rights.
As children, we did not fully understand the history surrounding us. These were people our families knew, houses we passed, and streets where we rode our bicycles. Only later did I appreciate how much our neighborhood had contributed to Mississippi and the nation.
Dr. Alexander was a celebrated author, but my earliest image of her was more personal: the woman inside the house that made me stop and wonder.
I first read Jubilee in high school. It was not assigned reading. I picked it up on my own, drawn by curiosity about the author who lived near us. I have never forgotten its heroine, Vyry. Through her life, readers experience slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Her struggles, endurance, and humanity made history personal in a way that dates and facts alone never could.
Returning to the novel as an adult deepened my appreciation for its origins. Dr. Alexander drew inspiration from her great-grandmother’s experiences during slavery and the Civil War in Georgia. Family stories passed from one generation to the next helped shape the novel. Knowing this made Jubilee even more meaningful to me. Its pages preserved memories and experiences that might otherwise have been lost.
I was also pleased to learn more about Dr. Alexander’s connection with my alma mater. She attended New Orleans University, one of the institutions that later merged to form Dillard University. While living in New Orleans, she met the renowned poet Langston Hughes, who recognized her talent and encouraged her to continue her education in the North. She later earned her bachelor’s degree in English at Northwestern University.
The woman whose house had captured my childhood imagination had ties to the university that would become such an important part of my own life. That connection gave me another reason to feel close to her story.
Her encounter with Hughes reminded me how much encouragement can matter. When someone recognizes a young person’s talent and takes an interest in their work, that attention can help them imagine a future they had not yet considered. A conversation or a few thoughtful words can stay with someone for a lifetime.
That evening at Jackson State brought together childhood memories, family friendships, literature, and my connections to Jackson and New Orleans. I had come to celebrate Jubilee, and I found myself reflecting on the people and places that had shaped me.
Again, I could see myself on Guynes Street: a lanky little girl with two pigtails and pecan-colored skin, standing beside her bicycle and looking up at that two-story house.
What was Dr. Alexander writing?
The question still makes me smile. Today, as someone who loves to write, I better understand the thought and effort that might have been unfolding beyond those walls. I also appreciate the importance of recording our own memories. The stories we tell about our families and neighborhoods help preserve the lives behind history.
Attend the Mississippi Book Festival. Go to a lecture at Jackson State University. Visit a college campus and take a young person with you. Let them meet writers, ask questions, and discover something unfamiliar. You may never know which experience will awaken an interest or open a door.
Sixty years after Jubilee’s publication, I am grateful for the celebration that brought me back to those memories. Before I understood Dr. Alexander’s place in American literature, I was a little girl on a bicycle, wondering about the woman who lived down the street.
All these years later, that little girl’s curiosity is still with me.
