Inheritance is tricky business. Everything we receive – whether physically or spiritually – is marked by the hands that passed it down and the experiences that shaped them. So much of what we inherit serves us daily, and still other gifts are harder to track and use to our benefit.

Nestled upon 80 acres in the Mississippi Hill Country is a little family business called Foxfire Ranch. Foxfire has served the community as a music and event venue for over a decade, but the land has been in the Hollowell family for more than a hundred years. Annette Hollowell holds many roles in her family – loving mother, dutiful daughter, partner in the family business. Keeping with the local traditions of Sunday night juke joints, the Hollowells have hosted Blues shows for almost 20 years. For the last decade, Annette has been collaborating with her parents, Bill and Annie, to turn their homey family event venue, Foxfire Ranch, into a destination for artists and organizers throughout the South and beyond. She knows her vision requires a great deal of collaboration not only with her living community, with her ancestors, and her descendants.

We Are the Promised Land is a multimedia altar to Black land legacies in the Mississippi Hill Country that centers the Hollowell family and their land, Foxfire Ranch. With all the Black land loss stories in Mississippi, we look into how the Hollowell family has kept their land for over a century, and what it has cost them. Annette sifts through a hundred years of her family’s labor on the land to inform the foundations she lays for her descendants in the next century. Producer, free feral, rides shotgun with Annette Hollowell to explore how music, food, and other Sunday customs have kept Black communities in North Mississippi going strong for generations, asking:

What echoes of our ancestors suggest that we are their afterlife?

How do we create the afterlife they deserve?

We Are the Promised Land will serve up fresh offerings on new and full moons in Spring 2026. To experience the full altar, which includes photography, video, poetry and more please visit wearethepromisedland.net

We Are the Promised Land is produced by free feral, in collaboration with Annette Hollowell. Sound design for our audio altar was created by muthi reed and Cedric Wilson; Cedric also mixed each piece. Our virtual altar was brought to life by Alleyha Dannett of Ancient Future Fourest, with photographs by Jasmin Johnson. Special thanks to the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, The Yoknapatawpha Arts Council and the Mississippi Presenters’ Network.

We Are the Promised Land is made possible by generous support from the National Performance Network, the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production, Carpetbag Theater, The National Black Food and Justice Alliance, The Center for the Gulf South at Tulane, The Panta Rhea Foundation, The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, Alternate Roots, The Big We Foundation, The Mississippi Humanities Council, and with financial assistance from the National Park Service and the Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance.