[Photo] Living legacies: The life experiences of southern Illinoisans By JRNL 419 Editorial Portraiture December 4, 2025
[Photo] A Christmas in Cairo: SIU’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ brings a new twist to an old classic By Dominique Martinez-Powell, Managing Editor December 7, 2024
[Photo] 'Divided we fall, united we stand': Local activists gather, plan after Trump win November 11, 2024
![Ebenezer Scrooge (Sawyer Richman) clutches his blazer as ghosts circle him holding jars with ‘unknown’ written on them Dec. 4, 2024 at McLeod Theater in Carbondale, Illinois. “If you go to Legacy museum [in Cairo, Illinois] you have these jars where people who have been lynched, the family of the victims, they pack the soil from where they were lynched and put it in a jar and then they write their name on the jar and they store them in the Legacy museum but that jar represents lynching…the label on the jar, it says unknown, and that's why they had the fish nets around their heads to cover their identity. They are unknown people, black people who lost their lives to lynching.,” Kesiena Obue, the director of “A Christmas Carol” said.](https://dailyegyptian.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/A-Christmas-Carol_dmp-1260-1200x800.jpg)
![The ghost of Christmas yet to come (Malia Jones) stands behind Ebenezer Scrooge (Sawyer Richman) as Scrooge begs the ghost to leave him be Dec. 4, 2024 at McLeod Theater in Carbondale, Illinois. “I cast an actor who could pass as biracial for the spirit [of Christmas Yet to Come] because for me she was symbolic for the unity of the races. She can pass judgment, you know. So it's like, okay, if you do not repent, then I'm going to remove you from the world. With or without you, the change is going to happen. So it's left for you to to repent. So she came to pass judgment on Scrooge. And she came with the people (the lynched ghosts) who have been affected by the institution of Scrooge. And when I mean Scrooge, I do not mean this one person called Scrooge. No, it's the white supremacy institution. So she came with those people who have been affected by the white supremacy institution,” Obue explained.](https://dailyegyptian.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/A-Christmas-Carol_dmp-1183-1200x800.jpg)
![Martha Crachit (Makyla Mobley) sits down to rest after coming back from working her two jobs in the play Dec. 4, 2024 at McLeod Theater in Carbondale, Illinois. “[The play] taking place in Cairo and us focusing on the class differences and race, it really does kind of bring to light… our forgotten history because we always talk about segregation, but we never really talk about how it affected people near us. We just get the generalized idea of ‘segregation is bad. We shouldn't do that anymore.’ But I like how this play is helping us focus on how it affects the family… I really just love how it's bringing to light to some parts of our history that sometimes we want to forget,” Mobley said.](https://dailyegyptian.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/A-Christmas-Carol_dmp-1079-1200x800.jpg)
![The ghost of Jacob Marley (Dominic Thomeczek) swings open the doors of Ebenezer Scrooge’s home as Scrooge sleeps Dec. 4, 2024 at McLeod Theater in Carbondale, Illinois. “I would say [my second favorite scene] is my scene as Marley because me and Scrooge bounce energy off of each other throughout the scene and we just have the perfect chemistry,” Thomeczek said.](https://dailyegyptian.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/A-Christmas-Carol_dmp-0575-1200x781.jpg)
