- She is the Memphis-based author of more than a dozen children's books, often centered around local history, African-American arts and culture, inspiring heroes and the civil rights movement.

Join me, George Larrimore, for A Conversation with Alice Faye Duncan.

[gentle jazz music] Hello, everybody, I'm George Larrimore and welcome to A Conversation with.

Alice Faye Duncan's books are much more than children's books.

She writes about love and loss, family and community, about racism and the pursuit of justice.

And she writes about Memphis.

Welcome, Alice Faye Duncan.

Glad to have you here.

- Thank you for the invitation.

- Well, we're going to we're going to talk about writing.

I want to talk about writing because you are a writer and a fine one.

But first, I want to talk about reading.

You were read to a lot as a child.

I'd like to know how that sort of set you on your course.

- Okay.

Well, my mother was a schoolteacher, and every morning, I was the only child.

And I would say I was very much adored.

And every morning my mother would wake me up in the morning to the poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar "In the Morning".

"LIAS.

Lias.

Bless the Lord.

"Don' you know de day's erbroad?

"Ef you don' git up, you scamp, Dey'll be trouble in dis camp."

And so my mother was very much a literary person.

She loved to read.

She loved books.

She loved poetry.

But, at night.

I required her to read storybooks to me and she was always tired from work so she would fall asleep.

And at that moment, in that time in my life, I knew then I was like, I cannot wait till I get to grade school so I can learn to read.

Because, you know, I got tired of my mom falling asleep on me doing storytime, so that was my motivation.

My initial motivation for reading was the fact that my mother was a tired school teacher.

- We want to get you to read to us today, if you don't mind?

First of all, I'd like you to read from your newest book, Yellow Dog Blues.

Now, this is a story, if you don't mind me telling a little of a kid in the Mississippi Delta who's got a beautiful yellow dog who runs away from home.

So tell us what this is.

You touch on a lot of iconic images and places in the Mississippi Delta and in blues music.

But tell us a little about this story, if you would, please, and read a little bit of it.

- Okay.

It's a story, like you said, about a boy whose dog runs away and the dog runs away there in Cleveland, Mississippi.

And the dog takes Highway 61 and travels what's called the blues trail.

And so what you find is as they go to the different landmarks, the dog is running away and he's stopping at different landmarks that are on the blues trail.

The blues trail being where a lot of Mississippi Delta blues musicians were born and learned to play.

And so it's a blues fable and it's a blues fable about love, loss and learning to let go.

I'm going to read for you.

- I love to be read to.

- That, well look, and I enjoy reading books, so I'm reading them aloud.

So I'm going to read for you the section where they're in Clarksdale and Yellow Dog has run away.

And Bo Willie, the main character and his aunt Jessie, who is taking him across the delta in a pink Cadillac.

They come to Clarksdale looking for the dog.

"Aunt Jessie's good luck charm wasn't bringing us no success.

"She got herself to thinking ha rd and followed common sense.

"She parked her caddy in Clarksdale "at the Hicks Tamale stand.

"A man on a corner gave it while report "like something we never heard.

"He said, 'I saw a yellow dog.

'That scamp left here on a Greyhound bus.

He was traveling with a band.'

"A band!"

Aunt Jesse hollered to "the heavens, 'Where can that little dog be?'

"I studied a map across my lap "and the answer looked back at me.

"Yellow Dog moved to Memphis.

"He followed the city lights.

"He sings the blues on Beale Street.

"Now he sings all day and night.

"What is the moral to this story?

"What is the lesson to this tale?

"Some dogs are very faithful.

"They will never leave your side.

"But some dogs ramble and they run the road.

"They love you.

And then," George.

"That's right.

They're gone."

- I want to ask you to rewind in your head to that day in the sixth grade at Snowden Elementary.

Because this is about you becoming a writer.

So tell us, if you don't mind a little of that story.

- That was really one of the most impactful events in my life at Snowden school when I was in sixth grade, My teacher, my sixth grade English teacher was Wanda Phee, who was a very wonderful teacher.

And she announced to the sixth grade class that we were having a guest.

And I don't know, like, I guess that morning before we even had done anything, a lady comes to class, her name is Phyllis Tickle, and she brings with her this African-American man whose name is Etheridge Knight.

He's a poet, and that's our special guest Etheridge Knight, right?

And Etheridge Knight, who won many poetry awards and things like that, and so he reads his poems.

He talks about how he had a literary mother and her name was Gwendolyn Brooks, how she discovered him.

And that was the first time in my life I'd ever seen a living writer.

Up until sixth grade, I would say I thought most writers were dead.

I assumed, and I just never perceived that writers were alive, I don't know why.

And so when I met Etheridge Knight, a poet.

He said he published books.

I was like, I can write books.

I can publish poems.

I was an only child.

I was always writing.

I mean, I had journals and oodles and oodles of journals of of my little poems and short stories and things.

But I never I'd never perceived th at I, too, could be a writer, right, until I met Etheridge Knight.

And so it was at that point that, you know, I just declared to my mom, you know, my dad, anybody who listened, you know, I'm going to be a poet.

I'm going to be a writer.

- And you made it.

- I did.

I made it, slowly but surely.

- Now, you you seem to have, as we were saying at the beginning, a lot of the content of your books.

It's not what you might normally expect to see in a in a children's book or always expect to see in a children's book.

You have confidence that children reading your books can grasp complex material.

- I understand what you're saying.

Yes.

You know, I've written a picture book for children about the assassination of Dr. King that would be considered somewhat hard.

"Evicted", yes is a story about the voting rights struggle in America that actually started 50 miles from Memphis in Fayette County.

It started as a movement because in Fayette County in 1959, after Reconstruction, African-Americans in that area of the world did not vote because they were so plagued with racial violence.

1959.

Fayette County's 50 miles from Memphis.

Black folks in Memphis are voting.

Fifty miles from Memphis, they're not.

They're not voting in Fayette County.

Be clear, because racial violence has so plagued the area, and farmers said at that point in '59, '60, '61, that we are not going to be intimidated anymore.

And they began the first grass roots voting registration movement in America.

So the poem that I'm going to read is called "The Ghost of Thomas Brooks".

And the way I approach writing hard topics like the assassination, the assassination of King or something about racial violence and voting rights.

The way I approach it is I write many of the stories in poetry form because poetry is music, poetry is lyrical.

Poetry is rhythmic.

Everybody in the world loves music, loves rhythm, loves, loves poetry.

- And it's accessible.

- Yes, that's it.

It's accessible.

And you can receive it in a way that I think perhaps is not as harsh as just a dried narrative, right?

So I'm going to read for you only the first part of a poem, "The Ghost of Thomas Brooks".

"My talk.

"My talk ain't polished.

"Listen, anyway.

"This is my body battered and bruised.

"See my bulging eye.

"Call me Tom Brooks "Here and not here.

"I am the wind.

"Click, click, a crowd of grinning white folk "snap my picture.

"Kodak brownie cameras cost $2.

"It is April 1915.

"My cracked boots and broken black limbs dangle "from the trestle of a railroad br idge in Somerville.

"I killed a rich white farmer and his helper, they say.

"They say so much that ain't true.

Click.

Click.

"Pictures tell the story as buzzing "white children chirp with glee.

"They is so happy to miss a day of school and dance "in circles at the hanging of a niggra.

Me."

- Wow.

You know in your heart that these are stories that children should know.

And these are stories that are not often told in the history books.

Absolutely, and this is my approach as a creative person.

I like to say that the dead talk and that.

It's something I know in the energy, my attention, my interest will turn toward a movement, a historical figure.

And then when my interest turns in that direction, it's sort of like this compelling that will not let me rest.

And I then have to, you know, write about that history.

And so that's what happened with "Evicted" my book, "Memphis, Martin, The Mountaintop".

That's what happened when my attention turned toward the assassination of Dr. King.

Just had to write about it.

- And let's talk about "Memphis, Martin and the Mountaintop", published in 2018 on the 50th anniversary.

If you would read a little from that.

Also, now, this story is from the perspective of a nine year old girl whose father is one of the sanitation workers involved in the strike at the time.

- It is, and again, talking about things being hard.

Up until the time I wrote this book, there was not a picture book about Dr. King's assassination.

There were picture books about Dr. King in Selma, Dr. King doing the March on Washington.

Dr. King in Montgomery, right?

But there was not a picture book about Dr. King in Memphis because of the hard subject of of the assassination.

So what I do here, again, is employing poetry to make, as you said, to make the history that is not happy, to make it accessible.

And so what I'll read for you here is I'll read for you the opening poem in "Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop".

And the name of that poem is called "Memphis, 1968".

And again, it's from the perspective of a nine year old little girl.

And she says, her name is Lorraine, and she says, "I remember Memphis.

"I remember the stinking sanitation strike.

"Alley cats, rats and dogs ru mmaged through piles of trash.

"Black men march through Memphis with protest signs raised high.

"I also marched in '68 with red ribbons in my hair.

"I remember Memphis and legions of noble men.

"I remember broken glass an d the voice of a fallen king.

"Fire, smoke and ashes ravaged midnight cityscapes.

"Black men marched for honor.

"And I must tell the story.

you .

You must tell the story so that no one will forget it."

- Let's talk about book banning.

It's a subject that we're hearing more about as various governments in states around the country choose to ban books that are in public school libraries or in public libraries.

This book-- - "Evicted"?

- No, the sanitation worker strike has been.

"Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop".

I'm sorry.

Has been banned by the school board in Duval County, Florida.

That's a list of 176 books, of which it is one.

It is, we tried to contact him.

It is at the moment, banned pending investigation, as they say.

You are a librarian.

You are a former librarian.

I'd like to hear your.

And an author, obviously, that's why we're sitting here.

I'd like to hear your thoughts as an author and as a librarian on the banning of books, particularly the banning of books for children.

- School.

What is the purpose of school?

School, has been established to make a educated electorate, to make children educated.

School has been established to make children critical thinkers.

So to me, the book ban movement is anti-intellectual.

It promotes that whole myth about the dumb American.

It's just sort of like it's the it's contributing, you know, to the dumbing down of America and it is unhealthy.

I don't support it, but I cannot allow that to stop me from my purpose and my mission, which is to write books that leave a record for the children who were not there.

- Tell me about your process.

How is it that you how do you research?

How do you write?

How do you decide what you're going to do?

How do you go about doing it?

- Well, I find what's interesting to me, what's interesting to my spirit at the time.

And then once I identify what I want to write about, the next thing I do is I try to go and find someone who was living and alive and who was in that moment.

So with "Memphis, Martin, in the Mountaintop", I wanted to find somebody who was living and alive in that moment who participated in that movement, right?

And I found Dr. Almella Umoja, Dr. Almella Starks-Umoja, whose father was Henry Logan Starks, and she participated in the movement.

So I used her story as inspiration for my own, not making it her biography, but using just the organic life of her story to inspire.

And then with "Evicted", I went and found farmers who were sharecroppers, or either they were children, and they lived through the movement in 1959, 1960 in Fayette County.

And then their stories then become the germ or the yeast that made my story rise, for lack of a better metaphor, you know.

And so I always try to find someone who's living or alive to to tether to my story so they can sort of like carry, that the energy of their lives can carry my story on.

- You mentioned to me, we were talking a few weeks ago about some of the elements that are most important in your life.

Your parents, your church, your school.

Now, how do those things looking at it now?

How did they affect the path you took?

How did they sort of help to guide you to where you are today?

- Well, my parents, my parents gave me a love for learning, a love for education, and they supported anything academically that I wanted to do, they supported it.

Anything artistic that I wanted to do, they supported it.

I mean, I've had I mean, I've had all kind of music lessons.

I've had all kind of photography equipment.

I've gone to all kind of art classes at the Memphis College when I was a child, because this is what I wanted to do, right?

And out of all that exposure that they made available to me, writing is what took and they supported it.

In terms of the school.

Snowden School, I can't say enough about Snowden School because that's where I had my en counter with Etheridge Knight.

But also I can't say enough ab out the University of Memphis who gave me three-- No, the University of Memphis as a school college gave me four teachers that influenced my writing to this very day.

There was Dr. Reinhardt heard who taught composition.

There was Dr. Reginald Martin who taught professional writing.

There was Dr. Deborah Plant, who also taught me composition.

And then in the history department at the University of Memphis, I met Dr. Elsa Barkley Brown for a black history class that was taking, I think, as an elective.

And Elsa Barkley Brown in that black history class.

I mean, I was always a black history student, always studied that.

But she just, she just made the history alive and she made it important to me.

And I knew that I wanted to carry on the legacy of writing about it.

- I want to ask you to read we have time to read all of of a book that I love.

I've read it several times.

And I think you've described it as the perhaps the most personal of your books.

If you would, tell us how.

Tell us about "Just Like a Mama", and read it for us.

- "Just Like a Mama" is the book that is the most biographical to my life and to my family, because it's about a you don't know if really it's the child's grandmother, if it's a aunt, neighbor, but it's about a woman who cares for a child who is not her own.

And that is my life story.

I lived with my mother and my father, but my mother cared for her sister as her-- She was like her adopted mother because my grandmother died when my aunt was very young.

And so my mother became a mother to her sister.

I got the idea, though, not from my family.

I got the idea because I taught school for 30 years and my very first year of teaching.

Springdale Elementary, my first year of teaching.

I had a student and the student was very much cared for and that student lived with her grandmother.

And and I just when I looked around the city, lots of children-- - You saw a lot of them.

- Right, I saw a lot of that.

Lots of children are being cared for by parents who are not their biological parents.

And it's a mode of survival that many people, even right now with with children who come from different countries and find themselves here in our country without their parents, then they make families.

Families are made.

And so it's about how we make families, it's celebrating children who are in made families.

- Okay.

Read us the story, please.

- "Just Like a Mama".

And I should add the illustrator is Charnelle Pinkney Barlow, who is the granddaughter of Jerry Pinkney.

So that's that's big stuff, right?

"Just Like a Mama".

"Mommy and daddy live miles away.

"I wished we lived together.

"Maybe one day that will be.

"I live with Mama Rose right now.

"She is just like a mama to me.

"Just like a mama, she combs my hair.

"She buttons my winter coat.

"And when I leave for school, she waves and shouts "from her front porch, 'I love you, ladybug!'

"Just like a mama, she teaches me things "like how to make my bed and dribble a basketball.

"She bought me a watch when I turned five.

"She taught me to tell time.

"She bought me a bike when I turned six.

"It is yellow like the sun.

"In summer we ride to the city park.

"We listen to the blackbirds sing.

"Mama Rose tells me often.

"One day child when you grow up, "you will spread your wings and fly.

"My mother and father, they live far away.

"I wish we lived together, I wish that they were here.

"But I live with Mama Rose right now.

"She is just like a mama to me.

"Just like a mama she wrinkles her nose and call my name "when I don't eat my dinner.

"Carol Olivia Clementine, green peas are good for you.'

"Yes, ma'am,' I say.

"I wrinkled my nose and go ahead and eat them because there "will be no chocolate cake until I eat my veggies.

"Sometimes I forget to make my bed.

"My bedroom is a mess and Mama Rose is not pleased.

"Like a mama she points upstairs and "yells, 'Carol Olivia Clementine.

"You have chores to do.'

"I run along, I clean my room.

"I know it is not perfect, but I do my very best.

"And Mama Rose sings my name.

"Carol Olivia Clementine, you did a super job.'

"My mother and father live far away.

"I wish we lived together.

"I wish that they were here.

"I live with Mama Rose right now.

"Mama Rose cares for me.

"Mama Rose is a hug and a kiss.

"Mama Rose is my home.

"She loves me like a mama.

And I love Mama Rose."

- Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- We have a couple of minutes left.

I just I want to go back to kind of go back to what happened with you at Snowden School in sixth grade, which you listened to someone and saw someone and had an experience that directed you toward where your life might go.

You, this does happen to you also.

- It does.

- Tell me about things that happened to you when you - Along the way.

- Meet children-- - When I meet people.

you've read to or who've read your books.

- Well, recently, this was really like.

This is phenomenal to me.

Recently, I was just, you know, at the house and old principal, a former principal of mine, she, texted me and she said, "Hey, I need you to read Memphis magazine."

And I was like, okay, and so she sent me the link, and it was about a black bookstore.

A young man had opened up a new black bookstore in Memphis to promote the joy of reading in the black community.

And I thought, oh, this is really, really wonderful.

You know, I write books.

I'm like, I understand now.

She said that she wanted to share this with me.

But as I continue to read the article and got toward the end of it, the young man who opened the bookstore, he began to share with the writer how, you know, he fell in love with books and words, reading a picture book called "Willie Jerome".

Willie Jerome was my very first picture book that I published in 1995 with Simon & Schuster.

And I was like, floored in a very good way, because oftentimes writing and teaching is like is like school, or teaching and writing is like school.

You know, you're there, you're teaching, you're writing, but you really don't know if what you're teaching or what you're writing is affecting people's hearts or affecting, you know, just affecting their lives in a positive way.

And so to see that that book from 1995, which is I'm not good at math.

So that's like very, very long ago, many decades ago, to see how that book had influenced someone to fall in love with words, and then that young man to go off and open a bookstore because he wanted to inspire people in the black community to do the same.

I just I thank God.

I thank God to have a spirit of creativity and to and to be a writer, you know, to have that ability.

It was it was a blessing to me.

- Well, I'm so glad that you're a writer because you're a marvelous writer.

- Thank you.

- And appreciate you being here today.

- Thank you.

- And appreciate our audience watching us today on a conversation with Alice Faye Duncan.

I'm George Larrimore.

Please join us again.

Thank you for being here.

[gentle jazz music] [acoustic guitar chords]