Jerry W. Ward. Jr.'s services in New Orleans

I'm back from New Orleans. On February 21, 2025, I attended the services in honor of our friend and professor Dr. Jerry W. Ward, Jr. I served as one of the pallbearers.

 
There were about 50, 60 people there: His relatives (a small group of cousins). Various former students from Tougaloo College. Mississippi friends and writers; New Orleans friends and writers (Kalamu ya Salaam, Brenda Marie Osbey, Mona Lisa Savoy, and a few others). Dr. Ward's friend, the attorney and art collector Cleo Thomas, Jr. drove over from Alabama.

The president of Tougaloo College attended read a proclamation in honor of Dr. Ward. The initial plan was for those gathered to read "his story" (obituary) silently, but Betty Parker Smith thought folks needed to hear it, so she asked Mississippi writer C. Liegh McInnis, another one of the pallbearers to read it to the audience. That was the highlight for me, mainly because I've spent the last two decades exchanging ideas about literature, music, culture, and politics with Dr. Ward and C. Liegh.

Related:

• A Notebook on Jerry W. Ward, Jr.