Love & Justice: How Maggie and Mittie made Marvin a Model

Speaker Date: February 2, 2024

Two antebellum white spinster sisters in Marvin, N.C., raised a Black man and then his daughter as their own beginning in Reconstruction.

The women left them their 800-acre homeplace, a will upheld against all odds by two white juries in Monroe in the 1920s. The personal relationships and economic empowerment left Marvin untouched by Jim Crow to this day.

On-Demand Streaming Video

PDF Presentation

Gene Stowe
Freelance Writer

BIOGRAPHY

  • Graduated from Monroe High School 1972 
  • UNC (religion) 1975
  • Lutheran Theological Seminary (MTS) 1983 
  • Reporter for The Charlotte Observer 1981-1993 
  • Teacher, head of writing and religion program for Trinity Schools Inc. in South Bend, Indiana 1993-2012 
  • Freelance writer 2013 to present

EXTRA CREDIT

Inherit the Land: Jim Crow Meets Miss Maggie’s Will (University Press of Mississippi, 2006).

YouTube: Inherit the Land 2020, Inherit the Land Official Trailer.