Raising Children in Central Jackson
A team of women documented their community's stories of raising children and/or being raised in Central Jackson. Listen to excerpts of those oral histories here.
In a special lagniappe issue today, we share six audio excerpts from the Raising Children in Central Jackson Oral History Project. The Raising Children in Central Jackson Oral History Project was possible thanks to the relationships that Operation Shoestring has built and supported for decades in central Jackson neighborhoods. A committee of six women who are parents, teachers, and caregivers throughout these neighborhoods participated in workshops on archives and oral history facilitated by Dr. Alison Turner. This committee, along with a few volunteers, completed thirty-five oral history interviews with friends, family members, neighbors, and strangers. After recording, the oral history committee became a listening committee: they listened to the collection and spent hours discussing what they heard. Within the details of the stories shared by individual speakers, they identified five major themes around raising children in central Jackson:
how access to activities impacts how caregivers are able to provide for their children;
the changing practices and expectations for discipline;
the changing role of faith and religious communities;
a deepening understanding of the long term impacts of trauma;
and a feeling that “the village” that in previous generations helped with raising children is now “gone.”
Each member of the committee then designed an activity based around excerpts of the recordings related to each theme and invited community members to engage with the collection through those activities. The thirty-five oral histories are available on the Margaret Walker Center’s website, and the art that emerged from the engagement activities is on display at the Arts Center of Mississippi through the fall of 2024.
This project was supported by staff and board members at Operation Shoestring, the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Community Foundation for Mississippi, the Margaret Walker Center, the Arts Center of Mississippi, staff members with Jackson Public Libraries, and a cohort of extraordinary volunteer transcriptionists.
The following audio is a combination of the audio excerpts included in the Arts Center exhibition, which are grouped around the themes listed above.
Velika Michael grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, in the Virden Addition neighborhood in a very supportive family. She later moved to North Jackson. Velika is not a mom but she is an amazing auntie (if she has to say so herself ). She is her sister’s support system along with their mom, who has always been a hard worker. Velika attends parent-teacher conferences, doctors’ appointments, school activities and does after school pick up daily. Before going to work at University Mississippi Medical Center, she worked in childcare for over ten years. She was also a little league cheerleader coach for football and basketball for over four years. She loves working with different people and talking and interacting with everybody. She enjoys cooking and spending time with her family. She joined the oral history committee in 2023 and has enjoyed the process. She prays this makes a big impact on the community. She hopes to help make a difference in Jackson, one team at a time.
Sophia Beverly was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. She is a wife and the mother of two children. Her children attended Operation Shoestring when they were in elementary school. She became a part of the oral history project over the last year, not knowing what to expect when she joined the Oral History Committee of six people. The experience has been awesome; the committee has become a family. They have connected with a range of people in the community, like the elderly and the youngest youth. She has met so many people through the process. Oral history has a purpose and the team are here to keep oral history alive.
Shalaun Davis was born in Holmes County, and she grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. She has one son named Christopher Davis, and she is currently in school for elementary education. Her dream has always been to become a teacher because she wants students to get the education they deserve. Her experience with this oral history project brought up a lot of memories, good and bad. It has also been a healing project when dealing with the trauma and loss in her own life while listening to the stories of others.
Porshia Jordan was born in the small town of Flora, Mississippi and is now a resident of Jackson, Mississippi. Porshia has a fiancé and five beautiful children. She is a stay-at-home mom while her fiancé and children go to work and school. She is also a Wingfield alumna. Before being a stay-at-home mom, she used to do PCA work in Clinton, Mississippi, for two years. She enjoys hanging out with friends and family and one-on-one time with her children. Her children once attended Operation Shoestring, which is how she was introduced to the Raising Children in Central Jackson Oral History Project. She is grateful for the opportunity to help start a change in her community.
Anastasia Shed was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. She attended Operation Shoestring as a child, and her children went through the program as well! She is a proud mother of three children. She chose to work on this project because it was an eye-opener for her that some people go through similar things in life but never talk about them. She learned that a lot of kids are being raised by their grandparents which pulls on her heart because she is a grandmother-raised child. Her focus in the project was faith, religion, and spirituality. Her favorite quote is “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Kearani Miller was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She grew up in a large family, surrounded by love. She came to Jackson to study sociology at Tougaloo College, which is where she fostered a love for the study of people. The oral history project has given her that opportunity once again. She enjoyed hearing about participants’ backgrounds, their struggles, and their aspirations. She can see herself in each person she’s ever interviewed. At the end of each interview there is always something that she takes away, whether it be a lesson or a goal. That is why this project is so important to her. No matter how different we all may seem, there's always commonalities that connect all of us.
Alison Turner was born in the mountains of Colorado, where she grew up splitting and stacking firewood “because that way it warms you twice.” Her debut collection of short stories, Defensible Spaces, was a Colorado Book Award finalist, and she is co-editor of a special issue of the literary journal Juke Joint, which features work from writers and artists incarcerated at Mississippi State Penitentiary. From 2022-2024, she was an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Leading Edge postdoctoral fellow at Operation Shoestring in Jackson, Mississippi. In this position, she coordinated a variety of community-based storytelling projects and tried to stop asking for water with no ice.
Clips from Tamika Buckhaulter, Carmen Castilla, Travion Collins, Starra Cooper, Shalaun Davis, Tyesha Davis, Akira Ellis, Vanessa Green, Jacquelyn Hampton, James Hampton Jr. James Hampton III, Cardell Moore, Verna Mae Myers, Lottie Smith-Erving, Cynthia Thompson, Emon Thompson, Gloria Thompson, Patricia Townsend, James Turner, Polly Williams, and Felicia Woods. Listen to the complete collection of thirty-five narratives via the Margaret Walker Center’s website or on Spotify.