I used to come out here every Fourth of July as a child to picnic and to swim on the island, to tour the fort and wander through it. And all of that time, I never knew anything about the presence of black soldiers on the island. And so, for me, this was a way of trying to tell another history, a lost or a forgotten or a little-known history about these black soldiers who played an important part in American history. ” Trethewey said. Coincidentally, she was born “exactly 100 years to the day that Mississippi celebrated the first Confederate Memorial Day, April 26, 1866.
When I was a kid, it was the attention I got from it, the immediate response from the audience, the thrill of being onstage. That's carried over into my adult life, I can't pretend I don't like the attention or whatever, but for me now, I've witnessed incredible performances that have changed the way I see the art form.