Ellington

She's petite—5 feet, 3 inches at most—her vocabulary is huge, and her future is gargantuan. Casey Parks, former assistant editor of the Jackson Free Press, has done more in her 23 years than most people ever dream. As the only one chosen out of 3,800 applicants to accompany Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof on a trip to Africa, I predict she will one day be selecting her own travel companion for some far-away journalistic expedition.

During her time in Africa, Parks visited Equatorial New Guinea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic to cover AIDS, maternal mortality and governance issues. In her winning essay, she told Kristof: "I want to learn by seeing. I feel deeply, and I know journalism. I'm strong, and have no need for five-star hotels or other luxuries."

But the once self-proclaimed poor girl couldn't possibly have expected many of the things she encountered while away—for example, the stench as a 24-year-old mother of three lay dying. After being in labor for three days, the woman had traveled to the hospital when her midwife could no longer help her. The baby was now dead in her womb. The woman soon followed. She didn't have $100 for a cesarean-section.

Casey Parks wants to tell these stories so she can help change the world. She will.

We'll take this conversation to Africa in a minute, but I want to know first how it feels being back in Jackson?

It's cool. I like Jackson a lot.

Did you know that you liked it that much before you left?

Yeah, I knew it. I didn't leave (after college) because I didn't like it. I left because it was time to do something else.

So what's the difference between Jackson and the other places you've been?

People in Jackson have a lot more drive. I just went to that Millsaps Arts District Fall Festival. There's always cool stuff like that going on here. There are lots of good rappers here, artists … In other cities I've been in, Columbia, Mo., Sacramento, Calif., there are no black people. I missed black people. Going to all-white hip-hop shows … I'll tell ya. Everyone here is excited, and they want to do things. Everywhere I go, everyone thinks that things are so important—"I've got a story for you," people will say. I like that.

Africa. Nicholas Kristof. The New York Times. Wow. That's a really big deal. What was it like when you first found out you'd been chosen?

I wrote the essay in 10 minutes, because I didn't think I was going to win. A month later, I got an e-mail saying I was in the top 13. Not winning out of 3,800 people is no big deal. But if you don't win out of 13, you feel kind of bad. People from The Times interviewed me, and I had to send in clips. Before I found out, when it was really close, I asked my mom, "If I don't win, are you still going to love me?" She told me she would, so I knew I'd be fine.

When Nick called me, I tried to act real-ly cool on the phone because I wanted to be professional, but I was sitting on my bed, all contorted thinking, "Oh my God!"

I knew I'd won for several months before I went. People tend to cast me as a celebrity. That happened a lot before I left. I'm not really comfortable with that. I had nothing to say before I left because I hadn't been yet. I got tired of being asked the same questions over and over.

Also, I talked in French the whole time before I left. I took four years of French in college and some in high school, but I was really nervous about that before I left. I'd be talking about brushing my teeth with my girlfriend in French at night so I could practice. But there's no way I would have known to learn the French word for "obstructed labor."

I had two weeks (in Africa with Kristof), so I made a couple decisions before I left: not to be afraid and to ask lots of questions. I wanted to show (Kristof) how great of a reporter I was. But he knows a lot more than I do, so I asked him a lot of questions. I wanted to learn.

I was also very honest about my experiences there in the blog I kept. I knew that there were at least 3,800 people who wanted to have the experience that I was having, and I felt like I owed it to them to show them what it was really like.

You were held up while you were there. How scary was that?

It was scary because there were people holding guns up to the car. Nick stuck out his hand and shook one of the gunmen's hands. It was disarming for him. When I looked at the man, he had the same look of desperation as many of the other people I was seeing.

Soldiers for the Central African Republic are burning down villages because they don't know if the rebels are hiding in the villages. It's very scary there. Everyone has guns, why wouldn't you have one, too? It's hard to be mad at someone who's just as much a victim as they are a perpetrator.

The same guys held us up twice. It was much scarier the second time. They loaded the guns in front of us, and they were a lot more emphatic the second time.

Aside from journalism, what'd you learn about yourself on the trip?

That I'm not really that poor. Before hand, I had this big hang-up about growing up poor because we didn't go on vacations or have nice cars. My dad always pawned stuff. But I could always go to the doctor. While in Africa, I saw a woman die basically because she didn't have $100 to have a C-section.

I'm much more into international things now. The way I look at the world is different.

What's one thing you still need to learn to make you a better journalist?

I really need to learn to use public records better—learn to digest and make sense of public records. That's kind of why I wanted to go to grad school.

I have a good sense of people, I write well, I can ask good questions, but the thing that bolsters good reporting and writing is research.

You've done so much already, and you're only 23. What are you going to do now?

I'm doing an internship at The Oregonian (the daily newspaper in Portland) from January to April. Then from there, I'm going to apply for a position at some big papers in the South like Birmingham News. Hopefully, I'll be back in the South this summer. I'd like to be back here for a couple years. Then I'd like to work for a national paper covering the South.

I'd also like to go back to Africa. It'd be scary, but I also want to go to Asia.

If you weren't a journalist, what would you be?

There's nothing I'd want to do besides be a journalist. I fit journalism. There's never a day when I think, "Maybe I don't want to do this." I feel like I'm supposed to do it—I have to do it. I can do journalism differently than other people can. I want to help change the world, and the way I can do that is through writing.

Casey Park's New York Times blog is free this week only. Check her out at parks.blogs.nytimes.com

Previous Comments

ID

84694

Comment

Good interview. I loved the part about learning you're not really poor by world standards. Constance Slaughter Harvey opened my eyes to this fact when I was in undergraduate school. Larry Bird, ex-basketball great, is my mentor on the passage from rags to riches story, although I'm older than he is. He said when he couldn't afford nice clothes he wanted them and felt ashamed because he couldn't afford them. But once he could afford them he realized he didn't really want them. This is my story too, but I bought too many before I realized I would always dislike dressing up.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-11-09T14:12:32-06:00

ID

84695

Comment

Natalie, I am 5'4! My girlfriend and I argue about this all the time, but I went to the doctor last week, and I am 5'4. ;) Oh, and there are plenty of African Americans in Sacramento, but not too many where I am now -- Bellingham, Wa. That's where the all-white hip-hop shows are.

Author

casey

Date

2006-11-10T10:16:23-06:00