This presentation focuses on 1930s and 40s African American jazz extraordinaire James Melvin “Jimmie” Lunceford. He was born in the Dorsey community in Itawamba County on June 6, 1902, but his family left Mississippi when he was a young boy. By discussing his journey and accomplishments through a visual, musical presentation, Janis Triplett Burns will highlight his ascension from humble Mississippi beginnings to international fame as an orchestra leader and movie entertainer. Lunceford has a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail.
Speakers Expertise:
As a former teacher consultant for the University of Mississippi Writing Project (UMWP), Burns conducted staff development workshops for high schools throughout North Mississippi and at the Gulf Coast Writing Conference in Point Clear, Alabama. On March 23, 2006, she presented "The Values of Porch People from the Mississippi Delta: the Role of Author in Clifton Taulbert’s
Eight Habits of the Heart” at the 58
th annual convention of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in New York City. In 2015, Burns received a NEH grant to attend a summer institute in Columbus, Ohio, on research of Dunbar. Afterwards, she presented on the topic “Paul Laurence Dunbar and The American Literary Tradition.” Burns has a special affinity to the presentation on Jimmie Lunceford, as he was the first cousin of her maternal grandmother.
