people-from-mississippi

"It may be that science has rather gone to our heads. Science is all right in its place, but that is no reason for our treating life like something in a test tube. Social studies such as education, sociology and similar things, which surely more than anything but fiction must deal with human beings and all their complicated relationships, are haunted by the scientific method, reduced largely to graphs, statistics and a hodge-podge of pseudo-scientific terms, the human element neglected or lost. In a similar manner, equally affected perhaps, romance has to be reduced to the scientific or physiological level. The love songs we hear on the radio and see on television are accompanied by physical gymnastics."

"But my mom was never bitter that things didn’t go her way better. She was surrounded by love, and to her that was better than money."

"She had seen what a challenging life looked like."

"If you’re not being challenged academically, it’s hard to stay motivated. Why hold yourself back."

"Barbara considered her mom’s words just short of gospel."

"Robert Johnson is the greatest blues guitarist of all time and one of rock’s founding fathers from the pre-World War II Delta blues era. [...] The first guitar hero, Johnson had the attitude to go with the chops. His tragic death in 1938 at the age of 27 has made him an icon for those who also mourn Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison."

"Like his renowned guitar playing, Albert's husky voice is a most sensitive blues instrument -- sometimes powerful, sometimes gentle, often both. It's an intimate voice, full of experience and humor, and it's just as personal and identifiable as his guitar work."

"The original and, many would argue, the best. Robert Johnson, bluesman of fabled lore, with his unearthly tone and his deal with the devil, is barely even a real person any more. If it weren’t for the few scant, scratchy recordings we have of him, it’d be easy to let the myth overshadow the man. But those recordings, beamed in from another age, are raw proof of a talent that defies explanation. He did things with his fingers that people are still trying to figure out, and wrote songs that live on in the DNA of all popular music. His legacy, like some Mississippi Van Gogh, far outstrips his lifetime achievements, and he will forever remain the demon king of the delta blues."

"Albert King is the Muhammad Ali of blues guitar -- a heavyweight with finesse, a bruiser with grace. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

"There are only a few immediately recognizable electric guitarists and Albert King is one of them. [...] Perhaps the main ingredient in his uniqueness is his sense of dynamics."

"[King] used to be a bulldozer driver, and plays like it. An awesomely physical guitarist, he may grab a note by the throat and muscle it up to the breaking point with his beefy right hand. Or he may just squeeze that note a little, and a little more, and a little more, teasing, coaxing, twisting it into place with subtly shaded bends. Albert King is the master of both the knockout band the nuance, and for him both extremes yield remarkably expressive results. [...] With his electrifying vibrato and eternal sustain, he covers a range of expression from delicate quips to police siren wails."

"Although he started out on acoustic, it was with Muddy’s transition onto the electric that captivated the music world, with the hulking bluesman using a slide alongside open G tuning on many of his greatest tracks, including ‘Mannish Boy’ and ‘Honey Bee’. Waters was also noted for his immense vibrato, and was famous for rolling up the volume knob prior to his solos to create eardrum shattering levels of distortion to cut through the mix and write himself into history."

"Racism is a grown-up disease, and we must stop using our children to spread it."

"Good and evil comes in all shades and colors... evil is not prejudiced.... evil just needs an opportunity to work through you.... All of us, no matter what we look like, we all have a common enemy, and that is evil. If we don't understand that and come together, then evil will win."

"You cannot look at a person and tell whether they're good or bad."

"Another Belzoni activist would be attacked by White supremacists months later. Belzoni leader, entrepreneur, and grocer Gus Courts was warned after the murder of Lee that he would be "next on the list to go." Courts was distinguished from his peers by organizing a contingent. of Humphreys County Blacks to pay their poll taxes and register to vote in 1953. After being harassed by the Humphreys County Citizens' Council, Courts appealed to the state government for protection. Instead of receiving protection, Courts was confronted in his store by a local Citizens' Council member who possessed a copy of his letter appealing for protection. After the November 1955 elections, Courts was shot in his store. Friends took the wounded Courts two counties away to the hospital in Mound Bayou, due to concerns about the care Lee received in the Belzoni hospital after his assault. Courts recovered from the attack in Mound Bayou. Following advice from Medgar Evers, Courts decided to leave the state. Escorted by an armed Evers, Courts fled the Delta to Jackson. After stints in Texas and California, Courts and his family would eventually move to Chicago. An FBI investigation of the Courts shooting ended with no arrests. In Chicago, Courts was clearly a political exile of Mississippi apartheid. During a 1968 interview, Courts reflected, I had to leave my $15,000 a year grocery business, my trucking business and my home and everything—my wife and I—thousands of us Mississippians had to run away. We had to flee in the night. We are American refugees from the terror in the South all because we wanted to vote."

"My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, this is how I feel about whiskey: If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it. But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it. This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise."

"Imagine if your mayor lost a reelection bid, but instead of conceding the race, they picked up the phone, called the district attorney, and said: 'I want you to say this election was stolen. I want you to tell the Board of Elections not to certify the results'. That's essentially what Donald Trump was trying to do with the election for president of the United States. It was a brazen attempt to use the Justice Department to advance the president's personal political agenda."

"But the need for this committee to hear from Donald Trump goes beyond our fact finding. This is a question about accountability to the American people. He must be accountable. He is required to answer for his actions. He's required to answer to those police officers who put their lives and bodies on the line to defend our democracy."

"The carefully orchestrated series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol was no accident or coincidence. It was the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College"

"We must maximize our efforts to counter violent extremism, radicalization and recruitment in the United States, and stop using xenophobia and ethnic stereotyping. If we are going to move forward and protect this nation, we must recognize trends in terrorist activity."

"The...home...is one of the finest organizations of its kind in the world...I know this to be a fact...I have every confidence in Miss Georgia Tann."

"Whenever you are just about to decide that Americans are selfish, unpatriotic, and unintelligent, they always prove themselves the most liberal and lovable people in the world. You simply can't stay disgusted with them. What a pity they are not disciplined enough to survive! (Ch. 20)"

"What I wrote seemed to me more essentially myself than anything I did or said. It often gushed up almost involuntarily like automatic writing, and the difficulty lay in keeping the hot gush continuous and unselfconscious while at the same time directing it with cold intellect into form. I never could write in cold blood. The results were intensely personal, whatever their other defects. (Ch. 12, on writing poetry)"

"That short period of my life spent in the line is the only one I remember step by step – as if it moved sub specie aeternitatis. Not that I enjoyed it; I hated it. Not that I was fitted for it by temperament or ability, I was desperately unfitted; but it, somehow, had meaning, and daily life hasn't: it was part of a common endeavor, and daily life is isolated and lonely. (Ch. 17, on his service on the Western Front in World War I)"

"Delta girls are born dancing and never stop, which is as it should be, for surely it is the finest form of human amusement except tennis and talking. (Ch. 12)"

"One night Jakie Smith rushed into my room with the sudden illumination: "I know what it is! The law is common sense plus clear English!" I've never heard a better definition of what the law should be and isn't. (Ch. 11)"

"Our woods are not made for walking because the vines and bushes are too rampant and the rattlesnakes too much at home. But the high levee is perfect for a stroll, which you can extend, if so minded, a hundred miles in either direction. (Ch. 12, on Greenville, Mississippi)"

"Only one thing never changes – the human heart. Revolutions and ideologies may lacerate it, even break it, but they cannot change its essence. After Fascism and Communism and Capitalism and Socialism are over and forgotten as completely as slavery and the old South, that same headstrong human heart will be clamoring for the old things it wept for in Eden – love and a chance to be noble, laughter and a chance to adore something, someone, somewhere. (Ch. 3)"

"I never heard them over their juleps express a philosophy of life, and if I had it would have been incomprehensible to me, but a philosophy was implicit in all their thoughts and actions. It probably made the Southern pattern. Perhaps it is all contained in a remark of Father's when he was thinking aloud one night and I sat at his feet eavesdropping eagerly: "I guess a man's job is to make the world a better place to live in, so far as he is able – always remembering the results will be infinitesimal – and to attend to his own soul." (Ch. 7)"

"Honor and honesty, compassion and truth are good even if they kill you, for they alone give life its dignity and worth. (Ch. 24)"

"[What do you think about when you paint?] I don’t think about art; I don’t think about anything other than emotion. I don’t go up to a canvas and say this is what I’m going to paint; I just go up to a canvas and just start writing on it, drawing on it, and it just forms itself into something."

"I often tell people, "If you have a choice between the bottom job and a low management job when you're first starting, take the bottom job because you won't learn as much in the management job". I also tell students, "If you're not curious, you're not going to learn. And if you're not enthusiastic, you won't be noticed". If you're not naturally enthusiastic, pretend to be. It's very infectious."

"I think Kyle Carpenter is one of the greatest living Americans, and I'm honored to know him. His words, though soft-spoken, are thunderous to the spirit. The only thing more powerful than his story is his message. He is an ambassador of selflessness, reminding us that when we take care of each other, we are extraordinary no matter how ordinary we think we are. This book is important. After I read it I wanted to be better. Please share it with the people you love."

"Kyle Carpenter's memoir of gallantry beyond the call of duty provides a vital reminder that grit and valor remain American hallmarks. A compelling account of a life well-lived against the toughest odds, one that will inspire and build confidence in every reader."

"I don't remember much about the incident and I definitely don't remember what I was thinking about in the moment, but, again, that's the amazing thing about people: You never know how you're going to step up, or when."

"Stay motivated. It gets old. It gets predictable. It becomes cliché. But in the end, it's good advice. And sometimes, you don't need platitudes or well-wishes or rousing speeches or photo ops, you just need to remember to take the step right in front of you and keep pushing forward, come what may. Honors and rewards are great, but it can't sustain you- you have to keep plugging away on the awful days as well as the great ones. You have to keep trying. You have to keep hanging on, even when there doesn't seem to be any reason to stick to it. You have to find that reason within yourself. You have to stay motivated."

"Kyle Carpenter has shown true courage and strength in the face of extraordinary challenges. He never lost his faith or his will to serve his fellow brothers and sisters. His memoirs inspires us and makes all Americans proud."

"I'm proud of what I did, but at the same time, I'm surprised by it. My guess is that you have surprised yourself, too- that there have been times when you didn't put much forethought into the moment but, looking back, you realize how boldly you acted. It may have been the action of a moment or it could have been the strength and persistence of weathering a particularly difficult season in your life. As you reflect on it now, you are probably surprised at what you were capable of doing. The fallout of that time for you might not be as readily obvious as mine was, but the idea is the same: You did what you had to do and you made your world- our world- a little bit better. That's courage. That's heroism. That's honor. Thank you for your service."

"The president of the United States, in the name of the congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Lance Corporal William "Kyle" Carpenter, United States Marine Corps, For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as an Automatic Rifleman with Company F, 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 1, 1st Marine Division (Forward), 1 Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in Helmand Province, Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom on 21 November 2010. Lance Corporal Carpenter was a member of a platoon-sized coalition force, comprised of two reinforced Marine squads partnered with an Afghan National Army squad. The platoon had established Patrol Base Dakota two days earlier in a small village in the Marjah District in order to disrupt enemy activity and provide security for the local Afghan population. Lance Corporal Carpenter and a fellow Marine were manning a rooftop security position on the perimeter of Patrol Base Dakota when the enemy initiated a daylight attack with hand grenades, one of which landed inside their sandbagged position. Without hesitation, and with complete disregard for his own safety, Lance Corporal Carpenter moved toward the grenade in an attempt to shield his fellow Marine from the deadly blast. When the grenade detonated, his body absorbed the brunt of the blast, severely wounding him, but saving the life of his fellow Marine. By his undaunted courage, bold fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of almost certain death, Lance Corporal Carpenter reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."

"It is incredible to think about the places freedom can take you."

"The more I fought for my future instead of against my past, the more I realized that there wasn't just life for me on the other side of this- there was life for me in the middle of it. My life wasn't going to start again after my recovery, because, truthfully, my recovery is not something that will ever be complete or ever be over. But by letting go of a world where I wasn't injured, I could focus on the life I had been given- a second chance that not everyone is lucky enough to get."

"There was a local Afghan boy, about twelve, who loved the Marines and would always salute us when we would walk out of our patrol base on foot. He and his eight-year-old brother even made a game of trying to snatch water bottles and goodies from the "dump pouches" on the back of our SAPI (small arms protective insert) plates, which were designed to carry empty magazines from firefights but doubled as snack, candy, and water bottle carriers. The two boys got to be friends with us, and through months of talking and playing with us would sometimes tell us where well-hidden IEDs were buried. Our EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) guys made a good show of trying to make it appear that their discoveries were accidental before the explosives were defused, but in Taliban strongholds, eyes are always watching. One night, about two weeks after I was evacuated, a grenade was thrown over the wall of our compound and detonated at exactly the spot where my now-empty bunk sat. No one was injured, but it obviously shook everyone up a bit. A few nights later, that same boy who used to salute us showed up at our patrol base in the middle of the night to tell us he threw that grenade. He was sobbing and begging the Marines to forgive him and not to kill him. The Taliban had caught on that he was friendly with us and that fewer IEDs were being detonated. They suspected he was the cause, so they beat him senseless- but they didn't kill him. Instead, for his final punishment, they dragged him to the wall of our compound, placed a grenade in his hand, and pulled the pin. A twelve-year-old child was forced to kill or be killed. That was just one story of countless others we heard- stories of violence, ritual stoning of women, pushing people off buildings for being gay. And children forced to become weapons of war."

"As we sat together in that kitchen, with the overhead lights reflecting back against the darkness outside, I had a realization: I could spend my life sitting at that counter, or I could get up and live. I chose to get up and live."

"For weeks afterward, I could wake up wondering, Now what? Every morning started with a question for which I didn't have an answer, except to do whatever the next thing was that day. I developed a daily mantra, and I still say something similar to myself each morning: "I don't know what I want to do or how I'm going to do it or where I might end up, but as long as I work hard, try to do the right thing, try to be a good person, and try to help people- I can't go wrong doing that.""

"How is one not affected witnessing that degree of evil? You remind yourself why you were over there in the first place- to put a stop to the Taliban and their torture and oppression of their own people. You remind yourself that, if you were able to weaken their stronghold or just give hope to those innocent people, even in the smallest of ways, so that one day they might taste the freedom of safety, then you made a difference. That helps you stay focused. That helps you stay motivated. Life looks different on the other side of a tragedy. The things you once valued have changed. The things you once believed in are scrambled. The things you focused on from day to day are different now. You are still you, but you aren't exactly the same and you never will be again."

"If nothing else, fiction has empowered a lot of people in the act of resistance. The Hate U Give, I know, has birthed several young activists and I’m so happy with that, I’m so proud these young people have decided to speak up and speak out on things that concern them. There was one young lady in Texas, it started out with her deciding she was going to speak up for the book when it was challenged by the school district. And that led to her becoming an activist in her own right in other areas. So I think books can empower. Rudine Sims Bishop [the author and educator] says that books are either mirrors, windows or sliding-glass doors, and that’s important in the act of resistance. You need that mirror to see yourself, to know what you can be and know what you are. And then you need that window to see into someone else’s life so you can understand what’s happening around you in the world that you may not notice at first glance. And you need the sliding-glass door so that you can step into someone else’s life and walk in with some empathy and use that empathy to make yourself heard. So yeah, I think books play a huge role in resistance. They play a huge role in opening people’s eyes and they’re a form of activism in their own right, in the fact that they do empower people and show others the lives of people who may not be like themselves.""

"I compare Bri and Starr to Biggie and Tupac…Without the beef! Tupac was very community-orientated, and that’s how Starr is. But Bri, similar to Biggie, she’s about making it, she’s about seeing her dreams come to life. She’s about trying to save her family, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So that’s where they’re different, but they’re similar in the fact that they are both powerful young women who know they have voices, and they both understand how they can use those voices to affect an entire generation."

"I'm okay with people saying “oh the language makes me uncomfortable,” but if the language is what makes you uncomfortable, consider yourself privileged. I'm more uncomfortable about the killing of unarmed black people in this country."

"Teenagers give me hope. We write them off so often. But I'm seeing a lot of things in this generation that’s coming up that gives me a lot of hope for the future. So I tell them when I'm in the old folks home, I think I can relax because I think you guys are going to do a great job."