Hugh Craft, Big House, 1851

Slave Cabin/Kitchen House, Hugh Craft House, 1851

I’m writing to you from “the most Southern place on earth,” the state of Mississippi in the midst of the cotton picking season.  I am sleeping in a house that was built 160 years ago, looking out a window at an equally old slave quarter/outside kitchen.  I’ve waited three weeks to say something about the “Thug Kitchen,” debacle but now I feel I have the spiritual grounding to say what I need to say.  As my hero August Wilson once said, “I stand myself and my art squarely on the self-defining ground of the slave quarters, and find the ground to be hallowed and made fertile by the blood and bones of the men and women who can be described as warriors on the cultural battlefield that affirmed their self-worth.” It’s time to get real about Thug Kitchen…