We’ve got another special episode today in support of WFHB’s Spring Fund Drive. Donate Here.

Today’s episode is Part 2 of of our special highlights show, “The Past of US.” Again, we’ll hear from three of our local authors who have read their own work for us: Gladys DeVane, Angela Jackson Brown, and Essence London.

The progression of our stories today represents something of an historical arc – all taking place in the South – from a slave plantation in the mid-19th century – to rural Alabama in the mid-20th century – and finally we approach the 21st century in Arkansas.

First up – Gladys DeVane opens our show with the short story that appeared in Episode 4 – “What Little Missy Didn’t Know” – a piece told in the voice of an enslaved woman reflecting on her rebellion against the Southern slave owners prohibition of reading and even learning to read by their “property.”

Episode 4 – Gladys DeVane

Our next segment is from Episode 22 – we’ll hear a selection from the novel Untethered by Angela Jackson Brown, which she describes as “a love letter to women of a particular age and size, paying tribute to a woman who was the boss at the time when being black and female and in charge was not the norm – late 1960s in rural Alabama.”

Episode 22 – Angela Jackson Brown

For our final segment we’ll travel to Arkansas as the millennium closes and two young cousins try to celebrate their own resilience in the face of an adult world that either dismisses them or sees them as burdens. Essence London reads her story, “Topsy Turvy.”

Episode 40 – Essence London

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