Nathan Watson for the Bama Buzz
This is an excerpt from the book The Moment: Changemakers on Why and How They Joined the Fight for Social Justice, edited by Steve Fiffer and published by NewSouth Books. The author of more than a dozen books, Fiffer most recently collaborated with the late civil rights icon Dr. C.T. Vivian on his memoir, It’s in the Action. For The Moment, Fiffer interviewed more than 35 activists of all ages, backgrounds, and professions. Among those featured “in their own words” are Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative; Michael Strautmanis, executive vice president of the Obama Foundation, and award-winning author Edwidge Danticat. Excerpts featuring Jackson, MS Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and Professor Ebony Lumumba, Zev Shapiro, Renee Montgomery, Doug Glanville, Don Katz, and Christian Picciolini appeared here previously.
Ashley Michelle Jones, 32, is a poet, instructor of creative writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and Converse University Low Residency MFA, and the first Black Poet Laureate of Alabama (2022-2026). She is the youngest person to hold this position. Her works deal with race and history inspired by Alabama’s historical enslavement of Black men and women in the Deep South. She is the author of Magic City Gospel, dark//thing, and Reparations Now! Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Jones founded the Magic City Poetry Festival. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University.
You look at the history and wonder: What would I have done? Would I have been one of those children marching in Birmingham in 1963? Would I have marched over the Edmund Pettus bridge from Selma to Montgomery in 1965? I never really knew what that would look like for me. I am very anxious around police or any sort of dangerous situation.