Eric Mingus
A chance visit, a hidden cemetery, and a song written on sacred ground. Eric Mingus shares how The Mill bridges race, history, and healing with help from Yo-Yo Ma. Listen and tell us: what does legacy mean to you?
We explore the two entwined branches of the Mingus family and the uncomfortable truths of how records were kept, names were changed, and rights were denied. Eric shares how he discovered relatives he never knew, how the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum reframed grief and accountability, and why music can say what arguments can’t. He traces the deep influence of Indigenous and Black traditions in Appalachian music, challenges the way jazz gets fixed into museum arrangements, and makes the case for improvisation as an ethical stance—art that evolves in public, with risk and care.
This conversation also asks who controls an artist’s legacy when the artist is gone, and what gets lost when living work is presented as a finished artifact. Eric’s answer is to build spaces where stories breathe. The Mill is becoming more than a piece; it’s a meeting place—part performance, part civic square—where local voices lead and history is told in the first person. Come for the music and stay for the questions that linger: Who gets remembered, who decides, and how do we keep art honest?
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