The Greene County Girl Scout Troop 408 sponsored a Black History Program, Saturday, February 26, 2022, featuring Alabama’s first Black Poet Laureate, Ashley Jones.  Ms. Jones gave a brief overview of her desire to be a poet from an early age and also rendered a reading from her works. 

    Poet Laureate Jones currently lives in Birmingham, AL, where she is founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival, board member of the Alabama Writers Cooperative and the Alabama Writers Forum, co-director of PEN Birmingham, and a faculty member in the Creative Writing Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts.  Jones received her Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Florida International University where she was a John S. And James L. Knight Foundation Fellow. She has three published books: Magic City Gospel (2017); Dark //Thing (2019); Reparations Now! (2021 as well as an audio book, If They Come for Us.

    The Black History Program also featured the Girl Scouts’ individual presentations of noted African Americans and their special contributions.  Other presenters at the Black History Program included the following: Ms. Mollie Rowe gave meditation and invocation; Ms. Felicia Smith led everyone in singing the Black National Anthem; Ms. Alaina Edison shared a reading; Michael Gill, Jr. shared a reading; Dr. Carol Zippert lifted the first Black officials to hold office in Greene County; Mr. Jerome Eason rendered a song; Miriam Leftwich shared a reading on what this country would be like without Black people; Ms. Shelia Henderson read a poem; Ms. Felecia Smith sang a medley of Negro Spirituals.