April Joyner (My birthday is April 26th, Confederate Memorial...)

Quote
"My birthday is April 26th, Confederate Memorial Day. I was born 100 years to the day after that holiday was invented. I don’t think I could have escaped learning about the Civil War and what it represented."

Natasha Trethewey, the new U.S. poet laureate

I sat in a lecture on memory of the Civil War in the Civil Rights Movement this past weekend during my fifth-year college reunion. Another post to come: some interesting things went down.

Bonus: interviews with Trethewey here and here (h/t: thesmithian)

#history #memory #civil war #race #literature #poetry