As a place-based poet, I have spent more than three decades exploring lineage, memory, and the layered histories of the South. Raised as an Air Force child on military bases across the country and overseas, I often felt disconnected from place. Yet South Carolina — my birthplace and the home state of my parents — remained the place I continually returned to in my writing, research, and artistic practice.

This project extends that lifelong search for belonging, history, and cultural memory. Through oral histories, archival research, poetry, photographs, and community storytelling, It’s Written in the Name seeks to preserve and honor the legacy of Fountain Inn Colored High School, later renamed Fountain Inn Negro High School, a Rosenwald School that served Black students during segregation.

The project documents not only the final graduating class, but also the teachers, staff, families, and community members connected to the school across generations. It will include oral history interviews, archival photographs, family documents, biographical profiles, poetry, and historical research that illuminate both the local history of Fountain Inn and the broader story of Black education in the segregated South.

A pivotal moment in the project began through a Black History program presented in partnership with the Fountain Inn Museum. Four community elders — Daisy Booker, Jeanette Redmond, Geneva Brown, and Genevieve Jamison — shared memories of the school and the community that surrounded it. Their stories revealed the urgency of this work and the importance of preserving these living histories while they can still be told.

Before the Stories Disappear

Time is at hand. Many of the elders connected to this history are now in their eighties and nineties. They are the living keepers of stories, knowledge, and experiences that often exist nowhere else. When they leave us, entire histories risk disappearing with them.

This project is rooted in the urgency of listening. In a time when aspects of Black history are increasingly marginalized or erased, It’s Written in the Name seeks to safeguard these voices through documentation, storytelling, and community preservation.

The long-term vision for the project includes a digital archive, public programming, educational resources, and a book documenting the Rosenwald era and the enduring legacy of Fountain Inn Colored High School.

It is my hope that this work will help ensure that the stories of this community are preserved, studied, and honored — not only within South Carolina, but across the nation and the wider world.