Greenville native and accomplished poet, professor, and artist Thomas Kneeland has been named one of fifteen 2025 Emerging Scholars by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
Currently serving as a tenure-track assistant professor of English at Anderson University in Indiana, Kneeland continues to leave an indelible mark on both literature and academia.
Although he was born in San Jose, California, Thomas Kneeland said Mississippi was where most of his childhood development took place and Greenville is where his journey began,
He was raised by his grandparents, Rev. Thomas Gray and Patricia Gray, and his mother, Corlene Lollis.
He attended Melissa Manning Elementary School, Coleman Middle School, and Greenville-Weston High School, where he played percussion in the Solid Gold Marching Band under Ray C. Brooks’ direction.
Known affectionately as Screwball by his bandmates, Kneeland graduated as the Salutatorian of his class and left Greenville with dreams of making a difference.
He found his creative voice while earning a full-tuition scholarship to DePauw University in Indiana, through the Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America (LEDA) Scholars Program.
Kneeland later earned advanced degrees in theology and creative writing but credits his family and his upbringing in Greenville as the foundation of his success.
“My creative and academic voice is the summation of all I’ve had to become to survive and thrive in this society,” Kneeland said. “In the fifteen years that I’ve been away from home, I’ve been a son, a grandson, a brother, a cousin, a fraternity brother (Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.), a college graduate, a father, a survivor of abuse; a husband, a divorcée twice over, a friend, an artist, an activist, a humanitarian, a professor, and a Black man who proudly claims the blood that makes me who I am.”
In addition to his achievements as an educator and scholar, Kneeland is the author of We Be Walkin’ Blackly in the Deep.
This poem is from that book and is titled:
you don’t ask me how I’m doing, so I tell you
my bank account & the rent bill
both conclude that I cannot
overstay my welcome in a system
never meant for me
to afford or remain
there’s no safe space
for the Black man
who defends him
forms a barricade around his Black body
places a force field around his Black mind
keeps white chalk from completing
its life cycle around Black galaxies
planets of men in golden black
impenetrable skin who thought
they’d live here for free
in exchange for Mayflower becoming
a part of canonized vocabulary—
police keep taxing with Tasers
light bills skyrocket
nerves short circuit
words slur
until we can’t feel the same
so when they shoot us
or apply fist-to-face
we die
with no light left in eye sockets—
these bullets laid new vinyl floors
in a body, I may vacate early
no 60-day advance notice
no renewal for Black men
who breathe just to stay cool
because these dreams are hot
damp sheets
lucid dreams of necks under knees
throats seized
no antihistamines
to reduce swelling
brains the size of watermelons
America forces us to eat on Juneteenth
to erase the cotton-thick breeze
of Black resistance and history
until we’re nothing more than anti-history
but ain’t I history? —
a reflection of Blacks who wished
to teach the story of the White Lion
that sailed the oceans blue
until they turned Black?
instead, we’re beaten black
along tar oceans until our brown
skin fades blue
confirm payment for the next thirty days
money’s gone and in the same keystroke,
another one of me’s been labeled
a mother’s dead son called home
and I’m supposed to wake up okay?
write about nature
and scream oh how the wind sways!?
when brothas are pleading
struggling to say hey, you don’t do that okay?
I call out my mother’s name ten hours away
I call my father’s name too a day away
and hope he doesn’t answer
from the other side
because he might offer me
a room rent-free
His latest manuscript, Cienfuegos, explores his Afrocuban and multiethnic heritage, a journey inspired by stories from his grandmother about their roots.
My grandmother, a long-time Greenville native, inspired me to explore this aspect of my identity
because her grandparents are where it all started (as far as the States are concerned). I remember the conversation like it was yesterday, although it was nearly two years ago on her birthday,” Kneeland said. I recall it coming out organically in conversation, we come from Cuban, Nigerian, and Indigenous American Ancestors, and we are only a couple of generations away from those origins.”
After learning this, Kneeland’s thesis work in the Butler University Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program shifted drastically.
“I needed answers beyond what I’d been given,” Kneeland said, “Realistically, I understood that there was only so much information that my grandmother could give me.”
From his research into his ancestral heritage, Cienfuegos was born.
Kneeland’s work has appeared in prominent literary journals such as Modern Language Studies, Southern Humanities Review, and The Rumpus. His poem “Anchorman Sings the Blues” was a finalist in Frontier Poetry’s Global Poetry Prize in 2022.
Beyond his writing, Kneeland founded The Elevation Review, a literary journal born during the pandemic to create opportunities for poets often overlooked by traditional platforms.
Since its inception, the journal has published over 500 poems worldwide.
Despite his many accolades, Kneeland remains grounded in his faith and a commitment to equity.
“This recognition is another vehicle by which true teaching and transparent writing can happen,” Kneeland said. “In terms of teaching, this recognition is a reminder that our students deserve an education that is unapologetically truthful so that they’ll know how to navigate the environments and communities they will one day join, and treat each other with love and respect as our first obligation demands.”
Kneeland offered this advice to young writers and scholars.
“You can be like water, water is gentle and powerful,” Kneeland said. “It remembers where it started but is persistent enough to enlarge its territory. You are powerful enough to do that too.”
As Kneeland continues to inspire through his teaching and writing, he carries Greenville’s legacy with him, proving that roots in the Delta can grow to reach far beyond its borders.
“With writing,” Kneeland said. ”I use poetry to deliver a message of humanity that aims to help us understand where we are by understanding where we’ve been.”
