Black Joy! newsletter | Reckon, AL.com

Journalist Jonece “Starr” Dunigan invited Kids Storytellers to recall childhood moments of joy. March 2022. In “‘It’s nice to be nice‘,” Melvin Todd says: “If there’s a gift that our ancestors passed on to us, it’s the gift of song. Because through that, you can gather the strength you need to persevere and to fight on.”

In “Daddy’s Girls,” Jacque Clarke Bell and Charlotte Clarke Houston speak of a home full of music. Their father, Charles Clarke (left) plays with a combo that includes his sister, Mary Alice Stollenwerck on piano. Ms. Stollenwerck taught Temptations members Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks at Western Olin High School, in Birmingham’s Ensley neighborhood. March 2022.