All of Illinois should celebrate the selection of Angela Jackson, as the state’s fifth poet laureate. Ida’s Legacy feels a particular connection to Jackson’s unwavering commitment to speak truth to power and offer honest encouragement to her community. She embodies values of people we believe deserve to be heard and carried to the forefront as positive shapers of our destiny.
In a wonderful intersection of politics and art, Jackson presented a new, as yet unpublished poem, at our August 2018 Legacy & Libations summer mixer. One of the featured panelists was Naperville native Lauren Underwood, whose improbable grassroots campaign was poised to defeat a four term Republican incumbent and become the youngest African American woman in Congress. She recently won re-election in another challenging fight.
“Illinois has a proud history of poets who have given us reason for hope in dark times, offered poignant insight into our own humanity and delivered profound social critiques, and as I considered the nominees to be our next Poet Laureate, all of these qualities were important in making the final choice,” said first lady MK Pritzker, honorary chair and final judge of the 2020 Illinois Poet Laureate Search Committee.
A laureate candidate, Third World Press publisher Haki Madhubuti also noted about Jackson, “She has stayed strong and stayed focused on representing the best of Black culture.”
Below, is the poem Jackson wrote and read for Ida’s Legacy at our mixer. The poem is scheduled for publication in 2021 by Northwestern University Press in her volume More Than Meat and Raiment. This is our tribute to both Jackson and Ida B. Wells.
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Your donation of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 or more to Ida’s Legacy will ensure more progressive African-American women candidates run for local and state offices.
Thank you,
Delmarie Cobb
Ida’s Legacy Committee
Paid for and authorized by Ida's Legacy Committee. A copy of our report filed with the State Board of Elections is (or will be) available on the Board's official website (www.elections.il.gov) or for purchase from the State Board of Elections, Springfield, Illinois. Contributions and gifts are not deductible as charitable contributions for Federal income tax purposes.
The Ida B. Wells Legacy Committee is not affiliated with the Ida B. Wells family or any other endeavor bearing her name.
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