In days gone by, much time was spent on front porches or in the yard under shade trees telling and listening to stories. These were history lessons of the people, the land, the times, and often captured history not saved in written fashion.
Ella Joyce “EJ” Stewart will lead the community in just such a time of remembering Saturday when she takes participants on a nostalgic trip back to the 1940s, 50s and 60s when life was simpler and memories were vivid.
Born into a sharecropping family in Jones County, Stewart shares many of these memories. She grew up on Eastern North Carolina soil, including moving to Kinston, where several siblings still live. Stewart now lives in Raleigh.
For some, these memories recall times when bone tired sharecroppers dropped cotton sacks, hoes, tobacco planters, vegetable baskets and sometimes their bodies in the Eastern North Carolina soil for a respite. For others, they include children jumping rope, shooting marbles, chewing sweet grass, and catching bugs and fireflies. And still others are rooted in dancing the huck-a-buck, slapping hambones or simply finding a shade tree to “Sit a Spell.”
Stewart invites participants to share their unique culture or to tell part of their own story on this verbal journey. A reception, sponsored by VisitKinston.com, immediately will follow her presentation.
Saturday’s presentation by the Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library, as part of its Black History Month series, will help celebrate the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and Civil War and encourage those long forgotten stories to be rediscovered. Passing on the rich oral history will leave the lasting legacy that words on a page simply cannot accurately convey as poignantly as the telling of tales from one generation to another.
Stewart is a short story author, playwright and historian who learned the value of oral history and family tradition from her father. She uses art as a way to create better communications across race, gender and class lines. Her original stories were published in Linda and Clay Gross’ “Jump Up and Say: A Collection of Black Storytelling.”
She is a member of the N.C. Humanities Council Road Scholars Speaker’s Bureau, where her “Forgotten Rural Black Women” has received national acclaim. She is a member of the National Association of Black Storytellers, where she has performed on their national stage and conducted various workshops.
For more information on upcoming library events, contact 252-527-7066, ext. 133, or neuselibrary.org.
Sit a Spell
3 p.m. Saturday
Lecture and reception
Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library
510 N. Queen St., Kinston
Free
252-527-7066, ext. 133
