If Mississippi is Hell, It Sure Knows How to Produce Heaven on Earth Too.

By: Ebony N. Archie

Regardless of belief, we all know stories and mythologies of hell. Jesus visited to defeat death. Persephone was dragged down and as a consequence, seasons were created. Oprah listened to the rain on her tin roof in rural Mississippi, and built a media empire. John Jennings grew up in Flora, Mississippi and created new worlds through comic books with Marvel. What do they all have in common?

They journeyed through an underworld, not to be consumed by it, but to be transformed and become a sort of alchemist.

Frank "Half Dead" Johnson from John Jennings' graphic novel, Blue Hand Mojo

When I think of all the deplorable ways people have described a place I love so deeply, I can only liken it to hell, and perhaps, Mississippi is a type of hell.

Just this month the Supreme Court ruled that safe drinking water wasn’t a constitutional right. A ruling in response to a class action lawsuit started in Jackson, MS, following the city's severe water infrastructure and contamination crises.

And though this story is true of Mississippi, there are many beautiful, awe-inspiring truths about this place too.

Mississippi is a both/and type of place not an either/or. 

As I reflect on John Jenning’s recent exhibition “Build Your World” he reminds me of what I mean by this nuance of many truths. His resume is beyond impressive. A Harvard Fellow, Marvel comic book writer, New York Times best-selling author, creator of a sub-genre of horror, EthnoGothic… a Mississippian.

Jennings' accolades and accomplishments are not only a reflection of a dedication to his craft, but are insights into what it looks like when creativity is birthed from Mississippi.

Portrait of John Jennings by Sophia Calderon The MAX in Meridian, Mississippi

Southern creatives reveal our uncanny ability to create something out of nothing. 

I took my time at The MAX Museum in Meridian, Mississippi, studied and lingered on his comic book sketches, design prototypes, and storyboards. They looked like me. The landscapes recalled a visceral response to the ways black folks have found refuge and terror in Southern landscapes. The ways we have always built our own worlds, own realities, own success, despite experiencing some of the most unfathomable traumas in human history.

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Photos by Sophia Calderon of 'Build Your World' by John Jennings at The MAX in Meridian, Mississippi

That’s what Mississippi does. The most Black billionaires. The highest percentage of Black-owned homes. The Blackest city in the nation. The Founder of BET, the birthplace of America's music, the birthplace of American culture. We know how to create despite, while, and without. 

When people think of Mississippi its often from a singular mythology, one that centers Black pain and misfortune, crafting a story of hell. But there’s an expanded reality that has always existed,  a mythology about the Southern folks who have chosen to become alchemists.

A people who have made this same land heaven on Earth. We see the abundance, the creativity, the treasure that can only come from the belly of a place like Mississippi, like the Deep South. 

And that’s why it doesn’t surprise me that John Jennings has worked with Marvel, had to create a new genre to have language to articulate his Black experience, or has created one of the largest black comic book gatherings in the country. It’s very Mississippi of him. We know how to turn nothing into something, so in the rare moments resource is available, we know how to transform it into something beyond its original value. We create new genres, new cuisines, new dialects, new culture, new frameworks for living. As we often say “We’re built different.”, and therefore we build differently. 

And the soft underbelly of that braggadocious statement is an unbearable truth, a realization that perhaps Mississippi is a type of underworld and its why we say if you can make it in Mississippi you can make it anywhere in the world. It’s like Jesus defeating death or Oprah becoming a billionaire, or John Jennings creating comics for Marvel. It’s like your Big Mama making a meal with tomatoes and cucumbers, like taking scraps and making quilts, like taking our sorrow and making blues. 

That’s the Mississippi experience. We know Jesus. We know magic. We know faith. We know how to see beyond and hope and imagine more until it materializes into reality. We know brutality, we know traumas, we know belly pangs from being so damn hungry.

So how did John Jennings exhibition feel? Like home. It was a sweet reminder of what it means to be a Mississippian and how we wield the ugly parts of a place and transform it into something nuanced, beautiful, valuable, dangerous, unsettling…priceless. It was the manifestation of what it looks like to take the genius and innovation of navigating the brutal terrain of the South, and produce beauty, mystery, depth. Heaven.

And so, if Mississippi is hell it sure knows how to produce heaven on earth. 

Jackson, Mississippi native Ebony Archie is a multidisciplinary artist, strategist, and wellness practitioner whose work explores Blackness, place, lineage, and Southern futures. A sixth-generation Mississippian, her creative practice is a forever wandering and reaching to translate what it means to unravel mythologies about the Deep South and build infrastructures that reveal fuller stories.

You can find her yapping about her obsession with holistic wellness, the South, inclusive economies, and whatever else is on her mind on Substack and TikTok—and creating spaces for wellness on Instagram and IRL.