Lumumba Elected to the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Board of Governors
 
The membership of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters (MIAL) is pleased to announce a new member to the board, Dr. Ebony Lumumba of Jackson. Dr. Lumumba was elected at the annual MIAL meeting in Pass Christian prior to the annual banquet. Dr. Lumumba is currently an Associate Professor of English at Jackson State University where she chairs the department of English, Foreign Languages, and Speech Communications. She received her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Mississippi. She was named the 2013 Eudora Welty Research Fellow by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Eudora Welty Foundation. In 2014 she was honored as Tougaloo College’s Humanities Teacher of the Year.
 
Dr. Lumumba is an avid supporter of education and the arts as evidenced by her participation in various community projects such as Foundation for Mississippi History, the Mississippi Humanities Council, The International Ballet Competition, New Stage Theater, and the Mississippi Book Festival. She participates on the national advisory boards of the Eudora Welty Foundation and the Mississippi Museum of Art. She is the founder of Mothers Obtaining Justice and Opportunities (MOJO). She is the owner and principal artist of OraAlease Designs—a line of stationary and original art that lifts the likenesses of Black women and Girls. She hosts episodes of “Write On, Mississippi,” a literary podcast sponsored by the Mississippi Book Festival.
 
Dr. Lumumba is happily married to her kindergarten sweetheart Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Honorable Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. The couple has two daughters.
 
Each year MIAL honors creative individuals with an award from the fields of eight categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Visual Arts, Music Composition (Classical), Music Composition (Contemporary), Photography, Poetry, and Youth Literature. The institute’s juried competition is one of a kind in the state. Judges are carefully selected from outside of the state and are prominent in their fields. MIAL is privately funded, self-perpetuating, and non-profit.