Jackie Jones Clowney, Briarcrest Christian School, Class of 1985 Memphis, Tennessee Until reading The Academy Stories and having discussions with friends who attended private schools beginning in the […]
As Sesame Street Started So Did Our Seg Academy
Debbie Hewitt Smith, Leland Academy, Class of 1974 Leland, Mississippi “How many of you are planning to go to the new academy?” It was 1969. I was in […]
We Said the Sheriff’s Name. But What About Emmett Till’s ?
Courtney Clark, Strider Academy, Class of 1988 Tallahatchie County, Mississippi I was 24 years old in 1994 when the State of Mississippi retried Byron De La Beckwith for […]
The Bubble That Never Was
Renee McCraine Taylor, McCluer Academy, Class of 1979 I always lived in the same neighborhood of south Jackson, and I thought of my childhood as a bubble. Yet […]
Do Academy Stories Matter Now?
Ellen Ann Fentress The Academy Stories editor Does The Academy Stories matter now? Fair question, since coronavirus has infected all of us, whether or not it’s specifically invaded […]
It’s Just Like the Good Old Days Again
By Caroline Langston, Manchester Academy, 1979-1982 We were public school people. That was one of the first, and earliest identifications I had—probably because I was born when most […]
White Woman’s Tears, Junior High Edition
By Deborah Pope Kehoe, Council School Manhattan, Class of 1973 It would be one of the questions, I knew. When I entered the English grad school program at […]
The Nooses of Our Past
By Neely Tucker. Starkville Academy, Class of 1982 In late October of 2018, I came back home to Mississippi, where my people have lived since the 1830s, to […]
We Don’t See What Is Right In Front of Us
By Mary Frances Richards. Indianola Academy, Class of 1978 In the 1960s and 1970s, the first law of life in the Mississippi Delta was the color of your […]
I’m Resisting a Conversion Narrative
By Kelly Foster Lundquist. Manchester Academy 1989-1995 In the spring of 1989, six months before I entered Manchester Academy as a 7th grader, I went through three rounds […]