Writer’s Blog

The University of Tennessee will honor its Black history Thursday by unveiling larger-than-life statues of African American football pioneers Lester McClain, Jackie Walker, and Condredge Holloway – and, additionally, Tee Martin, a latter-day “first.” The statues were...

By Sam Heys The young man’s dignity and strength still shine through. His calm and confident manner, his kind smile, his flawless features. In his prime, he stares at us from out of the past—his past, our past—with eyes that are confident, yet warm, comfortable with...

By Jim Barber (Barber is author of the 2019 novel Plowed Fields, a story of life in the rural South in the 1960s.) December 31, 2020 It’s been a hard, harsh year in America. Seems like literally everyone has found a reason to feel put upon and the idea of sacrificing...

I have written often about brave young black Americans I never knew who integrated southern college athletics and made us all better. Today, I write about a brave young black American I knew well who helped integrate southern press boxes. His name was Roscoe Nance. I...