Season 2: Gospel Music in the Black Church Tradition - Debra Mays-Jackson

In this opening episode of Season Two, host Jean Greene welcomes Dr. Deborah Mays-Jackson, a proud product of the Utica campus whose family roots there stretch back generations. Dr. Mays-Jackson, former Vice President at Utica, shares how she arrived at Utica intending to study accounting, only to discover the music department — and the transformative mentorship of Dr. Cooper — during her first semester. What followed was a complete redirection of her life's path, as Dr. Cooper nurtured her from a self-taught church pianist into a trained classical musician, vocal performer, and eventual piano major, instilling in her not just musical technique but confidence, discipline, and a standard of excellence that she carried with her to Jackson State and throughout her career.

The conversation then turns to the broader role of gospel music in Black Mississippi life, with Dr. Mays-Jackson reflecting on how gospel functions as a communal language — rooted in the slave spirituals, shaped by the church, and capable of evolving across genres while preserving its core message of connection, resilience, and faith. She draws a throughline from Holtzclaw's Jubilee Singers to contemporary gospel, arguing that while the sound may change with the times, the spiritual and cultural purpose remains constant. The episode closes with her hopeful conviction that no matter how far music evolves, someone will always reach back into those fields and pull the old spirituals forward.

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