Today’s Communiqué – 3.16.23

Janis F. Kearney’s latest book, Only on Sundays: Mahalia Jackson’s Long Journey chronicles the life of Mahalia Jackson, America’s Queen of Gospel. Kearney’s book covers the years between 1910 – 1972, beginning with Jackson’s maternal family, the Clarks’ migration from the town of Legonier in Pointe Coupee’ Parish Louisiana, to New Orleans, where they joined thousands of other former slaves, sharecroppers, and laborers, all in search of a better life.

Kearney’s biography paints a vivid portrait of life in uptown New Orleans’ and the Clark family’s personal struggles, including the loss of Charity, Mahalia’s mother, when the child was just six years old. Charity’s older sister Mahala “Duke,” for whom the child was named, “takes on” the girl, nicknamed Halie, and her older brother Peter. With that, came the assiduous task of shaping the once-carefree Halie, into the industrious child laborer who left school at fourth grade, to help contribute to the family’s livelihood. Halie’s amazing voice was a gift from God, and Sundays allowed her to share it with the world. Aunt Duke, however, spent the rest of the week steering the child from listening to the music of New Orleans’ streets. Music like Bessie Smith’s or Ma Rainey’s low down blues, or the raucous Rag Tag and Mardi Gras bands the child seemed to love so much.

JANIS F. KEARNEY grew up in rural Arkansas, the daughter of cotton sharecroppers. The author and publisher writes about hers and other southerners’ lives through short stories, memoir, autobiography, biography, and fiction. She has been writing all her life, but began her writing life in earnest in 2001. Janis attended and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a B.A. in Journalism. She credits Arkansas Poet Millier Williams, Civil rights leader Daisy Gatson Bates, and her father TJ Kearney for the path she chose to write stories in hopes of changing the world.

Janis served as publisher of the historical Arkansas State Press founded by civil rights legends Daisy Gatson Bates and L.C. Bates, and as Personal Diarist to America’s 42nd President William J. Clinton. In 2014, after the death of literary icon Maya Angelou, she founded the Celebrate! Maya Project, a 501c3 nonprofit, which serves as a bridge for young people in search of their own voices, and a forum for youth to learn their history and create their own stories, through writing workshops, literary competition, and public forums. Janis was inducted into the Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame in 2016, and in 2014, received the prestigious University of Arkansas Lemke Journalism Award. She resides in Little Rock, Arkansas with her husband Bob Nash, and their dog, Phynx, She is the proud mother of her son DK, grandmother of four and great-grandmother to two.