“Our ancestors were single cells, groups of cells, animals, then human beings, families, colonies, commodities, and now we free but somehow still we wear the weight of every life that made us. We hold on to what we think we need without knowing why we need it or where we got it. No memories retain their shape, just shadows, echoes, implications - looming rheumatism, fear of dogs, sweet tooth gone south to root canal, then empty hole… We are, some say, the afterlife. We are the particles of consciousness that remain of who they were. We are the promised land.”
— We Are the Promised Land, Episode 0: The Voice, the Void
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 since 2007, but the land has been in the Hollowell family for more than a hundred years. Keeping with the local traditions of Sunday night juke joints, the Hollowells have hosted Blues shows for almost 20 years.
Annette Hollowell holds many roles in her family – loving mother, dutiful daughter, partner in the family business. For the last decade, Annette has collaborated 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. But, to build Foxfire’s future, Annette realizes she must expand this collaboration across generations and dimensions to include all her ancestors and her descendants.
We Are the Promised Land is a multimedia altar to Black land legacies in the North 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. Producer free feral rides shotgun with Annette Hollowell as she sifts through a hundred years of her family’s labor on the land to inform the foundations she lays for the next century. Together, they explore how music, food, and other Sunday customs have kept Black communities in North Mississippi going strong for generations, and ask:
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.
Our multimedia altar includes photography, poetry, video, and more; each set of offerings places a prismed lens over the family and the land to reveal connections to other lineages in the region. While the altar is accessible on any device with internet access, we highly recommend using a computer or a tablet/device with a larger screen for optimal viewing.
We invite you into ritual space on this virtual altar. You can experience all the media offerings here in several ways.
Allows you to choose media to view as it is placed on the altar. Each podcast episode will be connected to a specific ancestor. You can access the gallery through the photo album. Written materials will live in the journal and in the flowers. Other media will be scattered amongst the small objects on the table.
Shows each episode and its corresponding materials.
You can find poems written by free feral.
Has a series of family and ancestor photos, and images of Foxfire. We also have commissioned portraits by some magnificent painters, which you will find here.
Has an array of video pieces that enrich the tapestry of our Hill Country portrait.
In Journals:
You’ll find written reflections by Annette Hollowell.
Include shorter pieces that were made earlier in our process that are no longer contained within podcast episodes, but that we still wanted to share. There is also a little music there for your listening pleasure.
Please visit to meet our remarkable team.
Additionally, you can find information about our funding sources and other partnerships on the Acknowledgements page.