Week Nine | Anna, IL to Hickman, KY: the next 140 miles

1pm, Thursday, September 10, 2020

Anna, Cape Girardeau, Thebes, Cairo, Wickliffe, Columbus, Hickman


LANDSCAPE | Ransacked

The river is turbulent, and so is life for many of its communities—through storms, floods, and man-made decline. But the people of the river persist, the river keeps flowing.

COMMUNITY | Those who rally and persist

The river is turbulent, and so is life for many of its communities—through storms, floods, and man-made decline. But the people of the river persist, the river keeps flowing.

VOICE | Sandy Hart

Founder and director of Kentucky Veteran and Patriot Museum and foster mother of countless children. Voice gathered on the afternoon of September 14, 2019 at the museum in Wickliffe, Kentucky.

VOICE | Andy Clarke

Life-long Cairo resident, former city council member, and now-owner of nearby Huckleberry’s restaurant. Voice gathered on the afternoon of September 11, 2019 at his restaurant just outside Cairo, IL.

VOICE | Renita Green

Pastor of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church and activist for homeless concerns in Cape and beyond. Voice gathered on the afternoon of September 10, 2019 outside the Marquet Tower in Cape Girardeau, MO.

Well, it was a small crowd this week, almost like family you could say… and by “like family,” I mean actually family—just Tom, myself, and my two parents zooming in from their carport in hurricane ravaged Lake Charles, Louisiana. Oddly appropriate for today’s topics of “ransacked” landscapes and communities who “rally and persist”—the parallels between these landscapes and communities that we experienced on the river and what my parents are mired in right now, but also their great attitudes in resilience and hope for a future out of the destruction around them.

I’m always so grateful for each week of this work, having my husband by my side, collaborating minds working together to put these presentations together. I never knew how the Relay would evolve, much less this fateful meeting of a choreographer and an engineer as part of the research and outreach in the project’s early stages. Many of you were witnesses to our “honeymoon” trip down the river, a most unusual holiday to be sure, and I’m happy to say we have rallied and persisted as well, after the model of my parents too, for the journey was not always easy, but the rewards are so sweet—and that is much thanks to the stories, the deep understanding, and the embedded relationships created through knowing so many of you.