Cynthia Davis with her son, Joel Davis, and Myra Ottewell
When East Cobber Cynthia Davis attended her 40th reunion at Mississippi University for Women, she had no idea that a chance meeting would lead to musical notoriety for her son, Dr. Joel Davis.
A 2001 graduate of Walton High School, Joel was asked by his mother’s former classmate, Myra Williams Ottewell, to compose original music for her documentary, Mississippi ReMixed. The one-hour documentary film explores the history of segregation in Mississippi and tells the story of Ottewell’s return to her birthplace in Jackson, determined to celebrate the great racial transformations in the state since the 1960s, only to discover even deeper complications than she anticipated.
The son of Cynthia and Bill Davis of East Cobb, Joel is a music composer and a 2005 graduate of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was named the school’s first Lilly Endowment Graduate Fellow. Joel completed doctoral studies at Claremont Graduate University in California and is a faculty member at The Master’s College in Santa Clarita, California.
“It was an honor to be part of Mississippi ReMixed,” said Dr. Davis. “Myra Williams Ottewell truly deserves the credit for carrying on with this project as a labor of love, on a true quest for reconciliation and justice.”
Mississippi ReMixed can be ordered for educational distribution by schools, churches and libraries by visiting www.mississippiremixed.com.
(Written by Elizabeth Wentz. Reprinted from the February 2012 issue of EAST COBBER.)
