A Peace of My Mind John Noltner

Joe Davis is a spoken word artist in Minneapolis. I interviewed Joe in front of a live audience for one of our Creative Changemakers events on July 25 at Squirrel Haus Arts in Minneapolis. He joined us with his band Poetic Diaspora. Enjoy a little music with them and then our conversation.

Jan Selby is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally in settings ranging from film festivals and art museums to university classrooms and on Public Television. BEYOND THE DIVIDE premiered at Montana’s Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and won Best Feature Documentary at the Peace on Earth Film Festival. After a year of traveling to festivals world-wide, BEYOND THE DIVIDE was broadcast on Twin Cities Public Television, which led to national distribution by American Public Television.
Jan’s previous film, A CIRCLE AND THREE LINES, won a regional Emmy, screened at numerous film festivals including the Woodstock Film Festival and was featured in the Walker Art Center exhibit, The Reel Thing. 
Jan is the founder of Quiet Island Films where she brings her documentary and storytelling experience to projects for corporate and non-profit clients.

I interviewed Jan in front of a live audience before screening her film, which she has now made available for streaming for free on the website for BEYOND THE DIVIDE.

Between the interview and Q&A segments of the podcast, you will hear musician Chris Koza play the title track from the film.

Duncan Gray is a retired Episcopal Priest and was the 9th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi. I met him at St. Peter's Episcopal church in Oxford, Mississippi, where he was rector, like his father before him. His father served from 1957 to 1965 during the turbulent era when James Meredith was the first Black man who was allowed admission into the University of Mississippi.
St. Peter’s organized itself in 1851. The church building was completed just prior to the Civil War in 1860. Its first service was just prior to Mississippi’s secession and, according to Duncan, “has a history of being an enlightened community in some pretty difficult times in Mississippi.”

Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar is chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. She has spent decades helping her community fight for federal recognition of their tribe and finding resilient solutions to the political and environmental challenges that have seen their traditional lands literally wash away into the Gulf of Mexico.

(We did this interview on the front porch, on a windy day, along a busy road, so there is some background noise, but the conversation is rich.)

Greg Campbell has gone home to die. His liver and kidneys are failing and on Wednesday, March 8, he left the hospital because he didn't want to die in an institution. He has chosen to die at home where he finds peace and love and safety.

We talked about his faith, his desire to teach people that they don't need to fear death and the deep joy in having time to say goodbye to friends.

Greg said, "Am I sad? Yeah. But this is the trail I'm on. And I have to finish the trail."

April Grayson was born and raised in Mississippi. She left the state after college and returned again 10 years later to tell stories about her home state and, in particular, about the Civil Rights Movement and the history of race in Mississippi through oral history and documentary films. April is the director of Community & Capacity Building at the Alluvial Collective, formerly the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, an organization that works to hold space for difficult conversations.

We talked about her love of storytelling, her work to build healing dialogue and the difficult history she finds in her own family's story right down to the name she was given.