Sankofa Stories of Black Chicago
In February of 2022, ConTextos launched its second chapter of Into a Black Beyond, a multimedia project that aims to build a new library of writing and art created by Black Chicagoans. The first cohort met from January through March of 2021 in a co-created virtual space that emerged from the specificity of that historical moment: a seemingly unchecked pandemic, the languishing and thriving that coexists across the country and especially here in Chicago, once a mecca for Black progress, now also a symbol of Black pain. IABB also grew out of hope, a force that has historically moved Black people forward. Module 1 of IABB 2.0 offered participants the opportunity to delve deeper into their families’ collective history, to seek out and tell their families’ Chicago origin stories. This publication chronicles that journey. As each of us came to this experience from a distinct vantage point, no one portion of the collection looks the same and no Sankofa "story" told reads the same. That is part of its beauty. Lastly, there are work pages throughout intended to encourage each of you to embark on your own Sankofa journey. None of us exist without all the others in our family who came before. It is our obligation to tell their stories. It is our duty to say their names and to say them proudly. PARTIAL FUNDING FOR THIS PROJECT WAS PROVIDED BY THE WINTERS GROUP, INC. THROUGH THEIR LIVE INCLUSIVELY® ACTUALIZED PROGRAM
INTO A
BLACK BEYOND 2.0
022 2 R E WINT XT E T N O AL C C I R O HIST
Words by Tanya Calvin, Community Engagement Archivist Black Metropolis Research Consortium
When people ask how I got involved in archiving, I immediately picture the small plastic bin I had my mother buy me as a child. Though I didn’t know what archiving was, I knew I had letters, photos, toys, and cards that I wanted to store and look through as I grew older. I still have the items that I put in this bin, now stored elsewhere since I know more about preserving materials. I also think of my Abuelita’s boxes of family photos dating back from when she was in her early twenties. Truthfully, the field of memory-work as it’s known today began with folks saving beloved items, telling memorable stories, and passing all of this on to younger generations. In Sharon Marcus’ “Queer Theory for Everyone: A Review Essay,” Marcus notes the significance of auto-archiving as a means for historically oppressed groups of people to “take history into their own hands.” Indeed, historical narratives are changed when marginalized communities take the lead on documenting their legacies. As historians and scholars write books based on the materials they research in archives, those materials influence how our stories are told. Yet, if those archives are not created by our own communities, how can the narratives in these history books be reliable and accurate? How can they tell our stories if we ourselves have not been consulted on how to document them?
FOREWORD
This is where the power of auto-archiving lies. By taking the lead on documenting, collecting, preserving, and sharing the materials that represent our legacies, we can shape the narratives created about ourselves, our families, and our communities. Anthony Dunbar notes the way “the process of documentation has several interdependent components that contribute to identity development.” Archiving our own lives and the lives of our loved ones has the power to influence how we view ourselves and how others view us. Since many archival repositories exist within private white institutions, auto-archiving is a method that counters historical misrepresentations of marginalized people in archival records. Dunbar writes about how these counter-stories work to combat the biases and politics of remembering and forgetting in archives. In the face of systemic oppression and erasure, we have the power to document our own legacies and share them on our terms. I stand in the present, looking towards the past to find out how to build a future for myself and those coming after me. I seek to understand my decisions and those of my ancestors that led me to this present moment. I collect and preserve my own materials and support the preservation of my communities’ collections. Together, we write our own stories. Pass on our own legacies. Tell our children and their children about how we lived now so they will know how to live then. And so it is, and so it will be.
Marcus, Sharon. “Queer Theory for Everyone: A Review Essay,” Signs, 2005, pp. 202. Dunbar, Anthony W. “Introducing critical race theory to archival discourse: getting the conversation started,” Archival Science, 2006, pp. 119. Ibid, pp. 119-124.
S a n k o f a
Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana. The literal translation of the word and the symbol is “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.” The word is derived from the words: SAN (return), KO (go), FA (look, seek and take).
INTRODUCTION
In Module 1 of IABB 2.0 we, Black Chicagoans, all turned toward our family's past, seeking to answer sometimes unasked questions with the hope of bringing forward that which feeds us.
Who might you "return" to, to ask questions, seek information, and have conversation?
What are some questions to which you seek answers?
What about your family's past do you want to know more?
Say Their Names
Andrea
Coleman The Enterprise of What Was brings forth the Black richness of truth, wisdom and legacy.
The beginners of time and the creators of an era, the Black Reincarnation of My Kin celebrates the intimacy and interconnectedness of love, laughter and Black joy.
Beverly and Edward Coleman's Wedding Day
The Black Women within my life are mystic creatures who are subtle, yet powerful. With backbones of steel, they speak of omens and signs that teach us how to survive, thrive and persevere through this life of artificial hierarchy. They are brazen matriarchal figures who cherish family and define the norm. They are royalty with skin of melanin gold. Kazax Lounge
Black Joy is the elixir, the resistance and the flavor of our culture that ripples like honey. It's family cookouts and music cuts that have you gyrating and steppin into the night. Jazzy Cuzzos, Blues Steppin into the Night
Honoring the Ancestor: The Fear of the Intangible Memory. Fragile, yet sacred. Electric, yet fragmented. Powerful, yet soft. As the years continue to pass there erupts a fear of loss. A fear of lost stories, laughters and the remaining residue of my familiars. I am afraid. In an effort to cope, I honor. Honor the the Black celebration, the lives and the stories of my ancestors. My ancestors are embedded within the very fabric of my skin, voice and being. With this reminder, I find comfort. How do I learn from the past, without becoming lost within the thickness of the memory? Would I stray from the present or become more equipped to plan for the future. How to utilize the symbolization of Sankofa to find my way to all of the origins of my generation? As I scramble for answers, I am determined to lavish in the now.
The sun settled atop of the roof like thick runny syrup that drooped and scattered downward towards the roof trusses, gradual and slick. Wooden squares lined up in a uniform fashion. The splinters sprang to the sky, drying from the heat. A chimney would stand tall on top of the amount of brittles. Smoke rings blew high in the sky, evaporating. A pipe ran down to the lower level of the house, water bounced through the walls through the drain of the cracked homefront. You would always have to dodge the droplets that would escape the gaping holes above the door. The address plate of three-nine-eight began to disappear behind the under layers of the house. The white stale paint peeled and flopped over, like dead skin, chipping off onto the dewy grass and collecting under the floor of the house. Through each passing year, the house developed patches and shedding from its foundation. Maybe this occurred from the treacherous winds of tornadoes that threaten to tear the house from its roots. Or from the pounding demands of the rain, or maybe from the floods that would rise, leaving muddy stains on the concrete and lower brick wall. But the house swayed with the seasons. It was the rhythm in the air that seemed to formulate for each passing holiday. You could always tell that Summer was near. Beetles stuck to the heated stones, grasshoppers latched onto the tall strings of grass. Heat smoldered the air. The humid nights were made for star gazing at a star-less sky. The moon harvested all the brilliant balls of gas. Large bug shells would cling to the sides of the trees. Winged lightning bugs glistened like tiny moving ornaments. They hovered over the branches and twigs that lead the way to the backyard. Their glow illuminated dirt patches and gravel. Towers and towers of grass loomed over the rails of the gate, protruding through the open holes. The wicked wires of the gate contoured and leaned outward around the edges of the rail, it appeared to breathe out towards the sidewalk. We climbed these gates that were dented from use. The garage however, was a gobbling clump of dust that collected antiques, bikes with dangling chains, and boxes of forgotten burdens.....Spring would blossom through the awakened colors of the tree.
Pink petals flourished and created lush clouds around the outskirts of the concrete. They caught on windshields, and blew halos on the sidewalks. Spring left with each drop of the petals.....Winter passed through the sparkling hills of snow that soaked the inside of your boots and brightened your face with scarlet. The windows of the house were most evident in the winter. The house darkened and grew used to the night shade that came early. The decorations of swirling lights and blinking artificial tree played instrumental carols. With holidays came aromas, juicy and familiar. If you stood on the corner of the sidewalk you could breath in the scent of crispy chicken wings, the smothering sauce of spaghetti, the tangy paste of peach cobbler, Grandma's greasy pork chops and deviled eggs with a hint of Gain laundry detergent. These smells caressed the atmosphere and skipped down the street. With them brought loads of cousins, nephews, kids and drunken friends. They were accompanied with sounds of hummed gospels that milked the tension of the air along with family brawls, the bellowing barks of a dog, the squeak of a rocking chair, slamming doors, creaking steps, a ticking stove, a screen-less door and ugly laughter. This held the equivalent of warmth. Memories wore the house, digging into the roots. But the house was wearing down from the paint to the flooding interior. The rhythm of the house.....
THE GHOSTLY FOUNDATION
......flowed with the presence of a mother, lover and friend. The significant figure would speak the truth, with subtle humor and heavy wisdom. Her hands were the vessel of strength. She used them to occasionally fan away the many groping hands and kisses from her grandchildren. Months have passed, however, the house slips into a deafening silence. The warm presence cripples under the vacant interior and dull surrounding. The dim light has gone out and there is no present to be seen of this divine. She rests within the details of the ghostly foundation...
"We Don't Die, We Multiply"
MY PLEDGE AND CONTRIBUTION
IN MY ATTEMPT I pledge to honor and demand space for the lost and unseen within my legacy and beyond. I pledge to listen to the divinity that casts protection over my soul and guides me through this life. I pledge to embrace the mystic light that brings forth truth and unfiltered wisdom. I pledge to continue searching and preserving the very fabrics of those who came before me.
WHAT work are YOU doing to preserve your legacy?
Creole women, 19th century
Black Soldier, Post revolutionary era
Jauwan Hall
FAMILY FOLKLORE The earliest record of my ancestors in the Americas dates back to an enslaved child named Francois Bertrand, owned by Alexey Bertrand in the German Coast area of Louisiana. Nobody knows how, but Francois freed himself and began a life that would include service in the Merchant Marines and as a father to at least nine children by his life partner Lizzie (Louisa, Eliza) Garcia. Lizzie was born in Santo Domingo in the midst of the Haitian revolution and in adulthood she moved to New Orleans and worked as a nurse and midwife. The couple eventually settled in Biloxi, MS and began a life together. Their oldest son Francois Bertrand Jr. would serve in the Civil War with the United States Colored Troops. Francois Jr. lived until the age of 76; in his lifetime he fathered 7 children with his life partner Daynece Bertrand, one of whom was Joseph Gustauve Bertrand, my great-great grandfather. Born in 1868, he would grow up in the reconstruction and redemption eras in American history. Joseph Gustauve Bertrand would father 13 children during his lifetime, his spouse was Rosa Bertrand (née Hardy). Rosa was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1882, it is unknown when she transitioned. Their son Francois Albert Bertrand (my great-grandfather), was born in 1908 and would move to Chicago with his family in 1935. Their first home was in Bronzeville across the street from the Rosenwald homes at 47th street. Francois worked as a laborer at a factory according to his WWII draft card. It is unknown whether he served on active duty or not during the second Great War
My family's migration to Chicago would serve as a pivotal moment for future generations. Francois' younger son, and my grandfather, Joseph would develop into a standout athlete in the Chicago Catholic League and earned a scholarship to Notre Dame University. After earning a degree in Economics and serving in the Army for two years during the Korean War, Joseph returned to Chicago, married his college sweetheart Joan, and they would have 6 children. All of whom were aptly given names that started with J. My father, Joseph G. Bertrand Jr., is the oldest of my grandfather's children. He fathered six children and is the heartbeat today in a family bloodline that began at least as early as 1785 on the Louisiana coast and heart of what we today call Haiti. Joseph G. Bertrand Sr. (circa 1976)
Joseph G. Bertrand Jr. (2015)
Jauwan Hall-Bertrand (2019)
An Ode to the Ancestors & Righteous Revolutionaries… I’m younger than Malcolm I’m older than Fred I don’t know if this system Wants me alive or dead Malcolm was a reader, leader, and a teacher Fred was a revolutionary speaker and thinker And today we still don’t know what it means to have lost both so young, and yet so wise Their punishment for greatness Was an early demise I’m younger than Malcolm I’m older than Fred I don’t know if this system Wants me alive or dead
Black man bad, white man good Red man savage, in the white mans hood AmeriKKKa Based in the USA... Home of the thieves And the Land of the slaves Ya know the white man's heaven And... Black woman’s hell Where the Yellow man & Red man tell no tales I’m younger than Malcolm I’m older than Fred Idk if the system Wants me alive or dead
What's that you say? Speak out & speak up? That’s the shit that get you killed The truth hurts when it’s told, But yo, we really gotta heal... So what can we do? Can we build up the youth? Can we mix in their ideas And their agendas too? Can we meet with the elders? Can we hear what they might do? If they were 20 yrs younger And still knew what they knew? I’m down to do whatever We can jump thru all the hoops We have to avoid attempts at white supremacist coups Jan 6th should be forever etched in our memory Maybe we can dedicate January to white history... I’m younger than Malcolm I’m older than Fred And idk if this system Wants me alive or dead
Alkebuluan Merriweather
Ruth Mabin (1916 - 2003) B:Greenville, Mississippi D:Chicago,IL "Your Grandma raised us, but your Grandma Ruth was the one that really raised us." "She always had the best stuff and got us our first jobs". "Grandma was always the best dressed in the room.“ -My Father Grandma had it all: furs, silk, & pearls. From the photos I’ve seen, she was always dressed to the 9s. My memories of her are faint; however, I can't recall her wearing something that wasn't formal. She was the Matriarch. A small woman who worked many years as a seamstress during her tenure at WGN Studios. She was our heart, never forgotten.
ALKEBULUAN MERRIWEATHER
Title: In Response to Maya Angelou's Poem titled "Alone" Date: March 16, 2022
It’s a word that has haunted me from a young age. I’ll never forget the summer of 2021, when I had to go to a place to understand I wasn’t “alone,” I was loved. But it didn’t always feel that way. White walls, blue gowns, cold floors, and the clear distinction of sane and insane were present. I would lay in bed listening to screams, arguments, and hushed voices. “I’m alone here” is what all that brought to mind. At night, I knew I wasn’t alone. Grandma would come visit me. A calming but small spirit would stand over me while I had feelings of shame, regret, and fear. Her presence was never angry or disappointed. Instead, I knew she was saying, “Baby, you're not alone. I’m here.” As I struggle to sleep, I recall memories of her. My Grandma Ruth. A woman originally from Greenville, Mississippi, a woman who raised many children and grandchildren. In times of need, I knew she would also appear. I can’t see her anymore, but I know her spirit. Her small, but mighty spirit reminds me that I’m not alone. When I got out the hospital, I told her my first night home: "I'll stop, you'll never have to visit me under these circumstances again. I'll make you proud, I promise."
To the memory of which ancestor do you return when feeling alone or somehow disconnected? WHY?
Jeanne Thompson Miller
How Do You Not Call Our People's Names? (Inspired by Our Mothers' Gardens)
Silent tongues harvest nothing No crops born Memories torn from branchless trees if we ignore indignities Outshined by all we’ve done the war was won by surrender. Silenced tongues leave children playing hide & seek from themselves eyeing photos as if Truth will magically appear, captured by foreigners’ versions of who we are. If we cover our own mouths, who will be left to speak for us? February 2, 2022
Forgetting is the True Death There is a weight at the bottom of a well aching to tell the stories we don't know. A stone so old its only voice is a whisper torn from a leaf blown from a limb hanging from the last branch of a tree we once knew. There is a weight eyeing me from the other side, sizing me up to see whether I'm hungry enough to stay at the stove, cover the pot, and flick the ashes of my own story. There is a weight at the bottom of a well waiting for me to climb down, hoping the fall will not be too great and the climb up worthwhile. When I'm quiet enough, I hear the moans of the rock humming me awake March 9, 2022
Running from the Crow... They came stumbling through sand everything chained but their minds Bodies carted as flesh cargo across oceans separating dynasties from war torn destinies They came surviving the shallowness of graves created in advance of physical deaths Choosing survival as fragile quests for generations to come They came from far away spaces places races of us brown skin browner eyes Men and women escaping time until soil and sand shifted to South seeking North as its brittle end Wondering again Lord when will a Black man ever ascend? February 16, 2022
a brown foot in each land I hear muted voices of the unknown calling me to build and maintain nests once nurtured by restless hearts of many cultures sifting grass until one true home remains Blowing off abandoned ashes, we rest in the limbs of songs and psalms of a breeze. We see roads and rivers and trees as the hungry, seamless guideposts they have always been. Each voice layers legacies lifted to the lips of Sankofa winds as tithes March 16, 2022
Lest we Forget There's a deadly silence covering membranes of our memories as we forge ahead of our elders, avoiding the past in order to ensure a fictitious future.
Looking back bears the weight of truth, heavier than the pain endured.
There Has Always Been Heat . . .
Family is poetry... FFamila little bit of body text
Sylvia Taylor
Session One Writing February 9, 2022 Gracie Mae left Weir, Mississippi in Choctaw County sometime in the 1940s to come to Chicago and sent for my Aunt Alice. Aunt Alice was not impressed and decided to move further west to St. Louis. My mother had heard stories about Chicago and WAS impressed. Gracie Mae sent for her. My mother liked being in Chicago and sent for her cousin Lockett James. Afterwards my father was convinced to come. They decided to get married here. Another reason Chicago was attractive was because jobs were easy to find. The first venture my father decided to go into was cleaning. He and his partner Curtis opened a cleaners, but due to eminent domain, they had to move out of the Mecca building. It was being torn down to accommodate the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Bringing Mississippi North
New Migrants
Get That Education
Mississippi in the Blood
He worked a week at the steel mill where our landlord worked but did not like it. Later he was recommended by his friend and my mother’s distant cousin Mac Triplet to work at Gerhardt Meyne Construction Co. He started there in 1946 retired after 34 years. During his employment he brought in his brothers Albert, Percy, Cleon, Charlie, John and Haywood. His coworker Dave said “they made that company” Thinking of Richard Wright’s statement “ Negroes who have lived South know the dread of being caught alone upon the streets in white neighborhoods after the sun has set …………..”, makes me remember the book Sun Down Towns by James Loewen. In Sun Down Towns he named places in the U.S where Blacks would face danger if they were occupying these spaces when the sun set. At the time the book was published, he included Bridgeport, the Chicago south side community where many politicians – Irish politicians - hail from, including the Mayors Daley. Thirteen year old Lenard Clark had the unfortunate experience of riding on his bikes with his Black friends in Bridgeport during day light when he was knocked off his bike and severely beaten with a baseball bat.
Another was Cairo, Illinois. My father was very light skinned with straight hair, and if, or when, his brothers ran out of food or gas during the twelve hours it took to get back to Gluckstadt, he was the one designated to go in and buy the food and bring it to them. He usually said, “These boys are with me.” That was the Language the white owners understood to serve them and allow them to gas up more immediately. They had to be creative.
Isabel Wilkerson detailed Black folks' migration patterns. Many were compelled to leave the south and go from one place to another in order to seek a better lifestyle because of “Jim Crow” They, in return, would send money and clothes “home” like my parents did. Wilkerson also made me think of Mom’s Mabley when she humorously described a literary test a Black voter was forced into. When asked to spell Chrysanthemum. The Black voter replied “white “or “Pink”. When the so-called judge said white. He answered by spelling w_h_i_t_e. Growing up the conversations at the dinner table centered around “home.” That was Weir, Mississippi in Choctaw County and Gluckstadt in Madision county. My maternal grandmother lived in Kosciusko at the time in a house bought by my Aunt Alice and her late husband “Goodboy”. We took frequent trips to Mississippi. In part because of those trips, I developed a sense of empowerment. My maternal grandfather, Richard Miller was a WW1 veteran. This allowed him to buy land. He was an entrepreneur. He owned a café. He established an AME church, was a Mason and cofounded a lodge. He learned how to make leather satchels and whiskey. For the longest I thought he was the mayor. His reputation was established as no nonsense. Reading about Teddy Rowe reminded me of him. I loved my step grandmother Lydia Miller too. She was “step” only because we were not biologically connected.
My heart was my maternal grandmother, Mary Potts Lloyd. She was a a seamstress but earned money as a laundress. The irons that she used were very heavy and had to sit on the fire until they were red hot. She made most of my clothes. They weren’t just special because she made them, but she managed to use materials with my favorite colors. When I was eight, she told me that all she wanted to do was live until I was eighteen. She died later that year. It was the first time that I saw the pageantry of the Eastern Stars and was struck by the grandeur of the attention they paid my grandma at her funeral. I think she had only been to Chicago once when I was two. She was the only person I knew that had a pink toilet, pink sink and a pink bath tub. I was on top of the world because both grandparents had an inside toilet and I did not have to go to the outhouse. Most of the people in the hilly town of Weir, engulfed in red clay dirt, hidden by pine and cedar trees, were related. I admired my relatives because I believed there wasn’t anything that they couldn’t do. They built houses, fixed cars, grew, preserved and canned food, made clothes and quilts, to name a few skills they possessed. My mother’s stepfather was a well digger. My father’s mother Maggie Taylor was a quilter and his father James Taylor was a farmer. I was scared of her. She was a staunch disciplinarian. My grandfather on the other hand was always fun and gentle. He saved money and bought land in 1929. Although he could not read or write, he had sense enough to bring a literate friend he trusted with him to purchase the property and threaten the seller with death if he cheated him like he cheated the other Black men he foreclosed on.
My father talked about “Jesse,” who he regarded as his pet mule that he used to plow the crops. My grandfather turned his land into an orchard. He encouraged his kids to continue their education, even telling them he would do their chores until they came home from school. He didn’t go pass the 8th grade. He said he stopped going because the kids would laugh at his raggedly clothes. He did graduate from the Madison County School for Coloreds. There he learned carpentry skills. For over thirty years he made a living at it. He later became a dapper dresser and his shoes were always polished. They brought their culture with them. He continued to hunt and my mother skinned the rabbits and squirrels he shot. She also continued with her garden, made shoes, soap, hats sold cakes, and made beer to sell. She graduated from the Madam C.J. Walker School of Beauty Culture, where Dr. Marjorie Joyner was the administrator. They ate hearty meals. We drank either tea or milk nightly. Cornbread was made daily for the beans, greens and even when rice and spaghetti was served. Cornbread with buttermilk was one of my parent’s favorites. We shared a love for Butter roll, peach or apple cobbler, sweet potato pie, lemon meringue pie, Chocolate zucchini cake, and homemade ice cream. Chicken livers, smothered rabbit and squirrel were on our table for dinner. Other meats that appeared on the table were from Weir or Gluckstadt, Mississippi. They killed the animals that they ate. Yearly we would have a new supply of bacon and hams hanging up in our basement.
Later, Pepper and Egg sandwiches, avocado and Tempura started being introduced into our diet. My mother had been a domestic and sometimes would prepare the same food she cooked for her employers. She also worked at a factory and was introduced to some of her Puerto Rican and Italian co-worker’s cuisine. They also had migrated to Chicago. I’m striving to place myself in a position to brag about the food I raise in my garden and prepare them as wholesome foods to consume, and consuming far less solid fats and sugars since I didn’t work manually like my parents had. I know that the connections with those substances increases the chances of diabetes and hypertension. Growing up we had bland salads. I convert bland salads to jazzed up ones with fruit and nuts. My mother's heroes were the Brown family in Weir that grew their food and milled their wheat. She would often say, “they didn’t need white folks for anything.” My parents had expectations of me graduating from college and becoming a nurse or working for SEARS. I did not want to do either, but I understood the importance of education. I thought about it while listening to Billie Holiday’s God Bless the Child That Has His Own. Proud of being baptized in the AME church at Grant Memorial also helped reinforced, my parent’s views of self- reliance factored in me becoming a college graduate with a B.S. degree in Dietetics.
My parents did an excellent job of seeing to it that our culture continued from Mississippi to Chicago. We lived down the street from the 1125 Club that had known blues artists performing on the weekends. I have exposed my kids to the music I consider classical like Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Willie Dixon, Thomas Dorsey, AND Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, and Bizet too. Both of my parents read and there were always books in my home. They came to Chicago during the Second Migration. after WWII. I am so thankful that they had an appreciation for growing their food, being self-reliant and appreciating academics. Consequently, I can appreciate both Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. Recently, I was told that my father was not born in Gluckstadt but more likely Flora and my mother was not born in Weir, but somewhere else in Choctaw County. I just found out last year that my mother’s grandmother had come to Weir with her parents from South Carolina. Thank Goodness for the Census Bureau. BLACK People Fill out the Census! This gives me more to think about in terms of migration. I remember seeing the slave auction house in Charleston. I wonder if my great, great grandparents ever stood on that platform.
I never talked to my mother, father, aunts, or uncles about how they felt getting on the train to come to Chicago. From our conversations no one ever mention being apprehensive. I believe they were eager to come and make the money that they heard was possible. They never not referred to Mississippi as home. Always going back whenever they could. Sending money and clothes in the meantime. In the sixty’s when I traveled by that powerful necklace of steel called The City of New Orleans train to and from Durant, Mississippi, I had my shoebox full of fried chicken, pound cake and white bread like so many other Black folks who brought along their food. I also had fried pies. Either apple or peach; I loved them both. Watching the white conductors as they passed collecting tickets and thinking if the Black men were pissed because there were no black conductors. The train no longer stops in Durant. I wonder how it must be to get used to getting off in Greenwood instead. I haven’t had that experience. I've just seen the neglected train station that once was busy while passing on Highway 51. My mother used to describe the train stopping in her hometown of Weir. She referred to it when she thought of Weir being a bustling town on the map. That was long gone before she passed in 1976. I think of the closed schools in my neighborhood in Chicago. Thinking of the life that used to occupy them. Economics!
My oldest grandson was six years old at the time we went to Senegal. We saw 24 carat gold Pink Lake, but it wasn’t pink then. We went to Goree Island, a beautiful place. Ironic to its evil history with the Door of No Return. Our names were carved in the Aloe Vera plants. We also carved names of relatives both deceased and alive. Food was great. I loves the onions, lemons, vinegar combination with the fish. We also ate food similar to that at Columbian and Puerto Rican restaurants. My grandson (mostly me) and I were determined to bring a wooden chair made from mahogany back home. With pride being able to accomplish the transport, I was anxious to show my father. He said that is the kind of chair me and my daddy and use to make. I was fascinated with the Baoboa tree and its many uses. The drink was just what we needed. I am so glad it’s available at Yassa’s on 35TH and King Drive. When we went to the Gambia, instead of finding the hut houses plastered with Alex Haley’s image, we saw Michael Jordan’s posters instead. My DNA test revealed that I had 100% Tikar lineage. Reading about the Tikar people I read that they probably migrated from what’s now Sudan. They had a history of being highly skilled artisans and politicians during the capture of people with purpose of slavery. We weren’t able to visit Cameroon while on the continent. I do think it will happen one of these days. My mantel has a place for the soil. It will be right next to the soils from Choctaw and Madison Counties.
From Ashes to Ashes
Postscript The latest chapter of our family's migration story started November of 2021 after my youngest grandson decided to relocate to the Northwest. Since grammar school he had stated that he was going to move there. So, he did. The reason he gave was that the violence in Chicago has overwhelmed him. He's lost a girlfriend, his best friend and others. From my perspective, it was a brave move. His navy experience may have given him that extra push. He has always been inventive, curious and entrepreneurial. I would prefer that he is around more family. He also speaks the language of physics. I'm expecting his move will bring him the success he's looking for. We miss him still.
Where is the ancestral home on your mother's side? On your father's side? What details do you know about it?
DAVIS
James Davis Hattie Davis
By: Markayle L. Tolliver
Ruth Davis O'Neal
Farrah Davis
In Response to 'Alone' by Maya Angelou (1975) Alone but I need you. Alone but you are a human. Alone but you are Black. Alone but you are family. Alone but have friends. Alone, all alone with people around. As the honor and respect for our ancestors fade, life fades. Ancestors have paved the treacherous ways for you & I. We learn their lessons, their loves, the keys to life. Adults teach us based on their personal experiences and mistakes. The idea is to teach children to avoid those same mistakes. Adults in generations before you, have made decisions that were personal and for their family. Decisions. Decisions that everyone didn’t agree with. Decisions that were costly. Decisions that were influenced based on current personal, social, political, economic, spiritual, and financial events and circumstances. Decisions that would benefit the entire family and their livelihood. Children in each generation endure a different climate change that causes a different response. Currently. Alone. 2022. Generation of children being born, raised, and living through worldly pandemics, city wide violence … (even lost friends from the neighborhood or school), mental health crises, financial burdens and debts, the rise and takeover of technology, the college life experience of independence yet daily struggles, the formation and uprising of world wars and dictatorships, the increase in police brutality amongst Blacks, the continued deadly daily doses of racism and white supremacy, WHILE ENDURING THEIR OWN PERSONAL BEINGS AND LIVES! WHEW! Youth are in pain. Youth are in distress. Youth are in need. Adults hear our cry! Some are trying, some have the passion and want to hear us… But let’s agree that HELP IS respect, understanding, communication, vulnerability, love, disagreement, agreement, adjustments, growth, accountability, honesty, and uncomfortable zones.
THE GREAT MIGRATION Every Black family has roots where their ancestors were born and raised in the South and eventually migrated to ‘Northern Freedom.’ Leland, Mississippi to Chicago, Illinois. The Davis Family. Dad, Mom, 2 sons. My great-grandparents met and married in the South. During this time, slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow were all relevant. Black families were required to do what was needed for survival and that meant any and every thing for men, women, children and the family as a whole. My greatgrandparents decided to start a family and birthed two sons in Leland. After their second son was born, they decided it was time to move to freedom. Meet James and Hattie Davis (my great-grandparents) who traveled to Chicago to start their new life with their sons, James Jr. and George Davis. Once in Chicago, the parents had 2 more children; Shirley and Ruth Davis. The 4 children grew up and began to live their new Chicago lives. As time went on, the 4 children grew up and started their own families. Now here I am…. Generations later, as a young man, I am learning and exploring the Davis Legacy. But there is one question that I will never have answered, 'Why did you move?' (What was the biggest advantage to moving)? Other burning questions for my family’s migration story include: 'What would life have been like if y’all stayed South?' 'What if all the kids were born down South then moved?' 'What if all the kids were born in Chicago?' Questions, questions, hmmmmm will there be another Great Migration?
Tribute to My Granny I questioned God when I got the call about your transition to Heaven. I was hurt, devastated, felt betrayed and ignored, and I felt defeated. Ultimately a piece of me died when you left me and it will always be that way. In life, God places us in situations and circumstances to help us look to Him as well as lean on Him. Granny, I was so hurt that I didn’t see you the week you transitioned, I didn’t get to hear your voice one last time, I didn’t get to felt hugbetrayed or kiss I questioned God when I got the call about your transition to Heaven. I was hurt, devastated, you, but I remember the and conversation 2 weeks and ignored, and I felt defeated. Ultimately a piece ofour melast diedconversation, when you left me it will always be that way. we both know that we made promises and before that call... Granny, In life, God places us in situations and circumstances to help us look as well asfor lean onfamily. Him. goals to each other, for each other, to to ourHim family and our Granny, I was so hurt that I didn’t see youI want beforeyou youto transitioned, getforget to hearour your voice one last Grandma, know thatI Ididn’t did not conversation time, I didn’t get to hug or kiss you, butpromises I remember ourI made. last conversation. This conversation was before I left or the that for college… Granny, we both know that we made promises and goals to each other, for each other, to our family and for our family. Grandma, I want you to know that I did not forget our conversation or the promises that I made.
Our first goal was accomplished when I became the first one in our family to walk across a university stage with a Bachelor’s degree. Again that was just one of the many goals we discussed. Granny, trust me, please know that your Grandson is continuing with his goals and aspirations. I will be sure to hold the title and prestige of ‘first-generation’ to the highest for our family. I will continue to elevate our family and our family’s Legacy present and future. I wish you were here! A lot would be different. I wanted you to see the continued growth of our family; children, grandchildren and great-grandkids. But continue to watch over us as our Family Angel. Thank you Granny for your help, lessons, talks, love, and support. I will forever miss and love you. I will forever continue to honor you. You are missed but will never be forgotten. Continue to Rest In Heaven!
I love you! Until We Meet Again!
The Buried Legacies 1980-1990. Hattie & James Sr. Davis (Parents) - Children 2009. George Davis. 2016. Shirley Davis Boyce. 2017. Ruth Davis O’Neal. 2021. James Davis Jr.
God is the Author and Finisher of our Faith. God is the all knowing and all wise God who controls Everything. In life, we sometimes question God, we question why, we question why me, why us or even sometimes why NOT me and us. Life is uncertain. We are infinite creatures. We do not know God’s reasonings behind His attributes, character, and/or decisions. My great-Grandparents, whom I didn’t meet, were called Home by 1990. This left me with stories, pictures and memories of them while my mom and her siblings were able to experience James and Hattie Davis. I thank God for my greatGrandparents who God gifted with skills, wisdom, and the support needed to raise their family with God’s help! The Legacy of James Sr and Hattie continued through generations and will continue to be passed on.
The Davis Family was hit by the sudden death in 2009 of the second oldest child and son. 7 years later, the first daughter of James Sr. and Hattie, passed on a June Summer day. A year and a few months later on August 31st 2017, (when I was just a young 18-year-old College Freshman at Western Illinois University and on campus for only ONE week), our family experienced the death of my maternal grandmother. She was my best friend, ride-or-die, my supporter, my main cheerleader. I talked to my granny about any and everything and she was ALWAYS there for me no matter what the situation was! She was very understanding, loving, caring, and had a giving spirit and demeanor. 4 years later…. In 2021, the oldest of the 4 children born to James and Hattie Davis, passed away in Cincinnati, Ohio. The oldest child. The first born. The last Original Davis. The Davis Legacy... Being a part of family history so rich yet buried, it is my personal duty to unbury, elevate, and grow the Davis Legacy. Our grandparents are deceased but not their Love and Legacy. Their vocal stories may be over but not the lasting memories of their Legacy and teachings to their children and grandchildren. The Buried Legacy is becoming Alive and Well to help gain access to Generational Wealth and Family Blessings. It is time for generational curse breakers and history makers to begin to shift the Family Narrative.
Other DNA DNA. Genetics. Biology. God. Birth. We aren’t all just one side. We are two families in one. My last name is Tolliver. I am my father’s second born. Michael Tolliver (dad). Michael Brown (brother). Markayle Tolliver. There are other siblings on my dad's side under me. History has no definite origin. I am learning Tolliver history that I didn't know. My great-grandmother was born in Mississippi. My great-grandfather was born in Gary, Indiana. My great-grandmother came to Chicago in 1955. My great-grandfather came to Chicago in 1950. My great-gma bought a home in Austin when she moved to Chicago, that she still owns and has raised 6 generations there (I remember cousin sleepovers and summer nights in the backyard). The memories. Generations past, present and future will experience the Austin Family Home.
My big brother made me an uncle of 2 nephews. On my dad’s side, there is a gender rotation with every generation. My great-gma had all girls. Her daughters had all boys. All their sons but 1 had all boys. And that was my dad. Now those boys' generation (me, my big brother and cousins) all have boys.
Toney - maiden. Brown - marriage. Tolliver -marriage. Toney is my great-gma maiden name. She married a Brown and we became the Brown Family. My grandmother, married a Tolliver and when she had my dad, me and him became the Tolliver's. I am a Tolliver by my grandmothers marriage, but my paternal original side is Toney and by marriage Brown. The Power of Marriage. The Power of Growth.
Behind a Name History. Family. DNA. Genes. Marriage. Origin. You make up multiple families. Everyone has a unique individualized name that tells who they are. These names affect our actions, words, thoughts, and lives. Our names can change due to personal desires, religion/faith, adoption, marriage, culture, etc. We are named after family members, celebrities, places, and whatever parents decide to name their child. - Markayle Tolliver - (named with a unique spelling of 'Markel' ; and after my father) Davis (maternal side name) Tolliver (paternal side name) Maternal Side: Davis (maiden) and O’Neal (family by marriage) Paternal Side: Toney (maiden) Brown (family by marriage) Tolliver (family by marriage) What is Your Name Background?
Fill in the blanks for your personal name.
Your Maternal Side: ______________ (maiden last name) _______________ (marriage last name - if applicable) Your Paternal Side: ______________ (maiden last name) _______________ (marriage last name - if applicable)
Delshaun Whitmore
Title: Session Writing Date: February 16, 2022 No one ever said that the journey would be easy. In fact, I've most often heard that to get what you want is one of the hardest journeys traveled. In the Bible it states that wide is the path that leads to destruction, but narrow is the path that leads to righteousness and few travel on the righteous road. If it were easy, everybody would do it. I have to be the change that I want to see in the world. If I want to make a difference I have to be the difference. There was once posed a question: Can one person make a difference or does it take a group? Well, a group is made up of individuals, individuals taking a stand based on common values and principles. So, one person can make a difference. Why not me?
Title: Session Writing Date: February 28, 2022 The Ouch Pins Migration Tchula, Mississippi nor Bastrop, Louisiana are particularly in the heart of either state. In fact, the two cities almost face each other as mirror images. Tchula is in the north east and Bastrop is the north west. Chicago is almost the diving line between them. Both Tchula and Bastrop are very small cities to the point every one there would know each other. The way Chicago is looks so different than the way Tchula and Bastrop is. It must have been a tough but stern decision to leave everything you knew and those you love to find a new life up here (Chicago). Thinking about the distance traveled, my grandfather from Bastrop, and my grandmother from Tchula, there was no guarantee they would meet each other and have a family because they both met in Chicago working for the Chicago Tribune. I believe in God, and I believe it's amazing that before my mother or I were born, He had a plan for my grandparents to meet up here and create a new branch of life extending our family.
Title: Session Writing Date: March 9, 2022 In Our Mothers Gardens really opened my eyes to how little of my family history I truly know. The revelation that although I remember some of my ancestors in my heart and thoughts, I rarely show a public demonstration of remembrance to display my appreciation for the risks they took, hardships they endured, and the life they lived that allows me to exist in a more fortunate condition than they existed in. I realize I have to search deeper in the lineage of my family because it will create a bond of identity to better associate myself with my family history. That foundation will be the grounds for an improved relationship with my elders, as well as future generations to come. Reflecting on what I know, I realize there is so much I don't know. There is so much knowledge, understanding, and wisdom I desire to obtain. I could only do so by reaching back and grabbing what was lost ,or never obtained, in the past. Who should define me, but me?
Title: Session Writing Date: March 16, 2022
After an in-depth conversation with the Sankofa group, I believe that family archiving is of the utmost importance, especially for those who find family legacy important. The concept that stuck most to my heart from the conversations we had is how much the truth matters when going through our family archives. The reason why it's most important to me is because I value the history of my elders. I like to see where those I came from went through or came from themselves. I feel it would better help me decide what path I would want to take in life and how to go about these paths. For example, I personally only know up until my great grandmother on both sides of my family, but I would love to know how far my family lineage goes back, even into our African presence. I would also like to have tangible evidence of my family lineage in those places, something physical to point to and say that right there is symbolic or represents my family history and the legacy we continue to leave in the world.
Jessica Garner
journey “It was glorious to survive” - dr. moore
i never remember seeing my grandmother pray or close her eyes, and whisper verses by her bedside at night i do remember sitting beside her in storefront pews observing her calm demeanor, as if she was the only one immune to holy ghost’s touch amens flying around the air like horseflies, she swat them away with her church fan my cousins and i never questioned her faith we just always assumed she was christian she was righteous, holy, perfect. we assumed she was dipped in the mississippi river, and then split it with a rod to pave a path to chicago where she worked factory jobs became temporarily catholic and made my baptist great grandmother cry she remembers meeting my grandfather on the westside being introduced to sam "coke" lundy by her older sister while communing at local backdoor taverns the only place they felt accepted the only space they were allowed shared stories and experiences from folks who were far away from home, still carrying burdens, families, traumas in their luggage and brown sack lunches my grandmother fell for an alabama man who took fragments from his broken home and created a new foundation with her's.
all my poems are about my grandmother
my grandmother had her first child at 20. shotgun wedding. could you imagine the phone call home? she was the youngest of 6, and if you hear her tell it, the prettiest. my grandmother had choices. my great-grandfather offered to send her to college. pair for. debt free. but my grandmother wanted to learn the ways of the city. to experience all the life she read about in the letters her older sister sent back home chicago was exciting. starkville had grown stale. so she left home at 18. my grandfather had his first child at 26. shotgun wedding. could you imagine the phone call home? he was the youngest. he came from a line of preachers, pastors, hustlers, survivors he survived. he earned wages as a golf caddy and bought a ticket leaving selma heading to chicago.
my grandmother had 4 kids by 25. my grandfather had 4 kids by 31. in a span of 5 years, they created a family. formed adam and eves out of mississippi dust and alabama clay. cultivated eden inside rockwells' gardens. provided their children with opportunities they themselves were never allowed to touch. to hold. to grasp. watered and plowed at rocky soil dirt lined with poverty and oppression. planted new trees of hope fought against slithering snakes that surrounded their paradise whispering promises of heaven and clarity in the butt of a cigarette, a bottle handle of whiskey a mysterious lover or two. the true promise land. my grandparents were not natural born fighters. gardeners or harvesters. their southern love, could not withstand the chicago's harsh winters. my grandmother had her first divorce at 37. Could you imagine the phone call home?
cooking or love like my mother's we don't use measuring cups or teaspoons we only use dashes and sprinkles a dash of love here, a sprinkle of comfort there we don't use recipes or cookbooks we use memories and repetition passing down traditions from mother to daughter to sister bonding starts in the kitchen it is learning how to make sweet potato pie from your grandmother or how to pick collards the right way. it is learning gender roles fixing plates for your uncles, brothers, grandpas getting used to serving yourself last we don't use food thermometers we just know we know by the feel, by the touch, the fingertips we know by kisses and by words we know by sacrifices by burnt ears and crooked hair parts we know by early rises and late nights we know by full christmas trees and fuller dinner tables by birthday cakes from scratch and party hats we know by school supplies and new shoes for the first day we know by prayers and holy intercession we know by tears, and laughter and joy we never have to guess. or assume. or question. we just know and are certain of a love only a mother can give.
Mother & Aunt Joyce Tangipahoa, LA
Memaw Ethel Maternal Great Grandmother Tangipahoa, LA
Mother, Father & Oldest Brother Riverview Park in Chicago, 1959
Big Mama & Big Daddy Maternal Grandparents Tangipahoa, LA
dr. moore facilitator
Father South Korea during the War
Session Writing Wed. February 9, 2022
Thinking about the ancestors. Wondering about all they took, all they endured; wondering about all they did which allows me to be--all they did which provided the soil, all its nutrients, within which I have grown and grow still. I am their legacy at the same time that I forge my own. My father is not an ancestor yet, though at 93 he speaks with the knowing and spirit of those who have gone before. He was an orphan by one, beginning a hard-scramble life in Wilson, North Carolina; as a child working as a shoe shine boy for a nickel or fifteen cents; at 22 ,serving a country that had never served him in the Korean War; at 38, a working class father of five. I wonder now, the closer he gets to an end, the closer I get to my own, about all his eyes have seen, about all his hands have carried, about all the decisions big and small made by him, made for him, made by unknowable others that impacted him just the same.
I think about his singular decision to stay, to dig his heels in, when it would have been so easy to turn tail and run. A woman he charmed, who in turn charmed him, pregnant with a child neither anticipated, neither wanted to imagine, who was real and coming anyway. He married, he worked too many hours at one too many jobs for pennies on a white man’s dollar at labor that didn’t feed his soul. But work he did, and provide he promised, and one child begat the next and so on and on and on again. His decision afforded me life, and his labors afforded me the chance at an education that would afford me the relative luxury to decide on this path or that, on this opportunity or the other, on this life or that other life that led to the next and the next after that. I don’t have much in regards to material things, certainly not by American standards. However, I fully recognize the privileges I possess because my father made a decision 63 years ago to stay. His choice was the hinge on the door that opened up to his destiny, yes, but to my destiny as well.
Session Writing: Wednesday, February 16, 2022 There are so many single decisions that were made along the way that allow me to be here in this space, writing these words. There are so many single decisions made by people I can name and by people unknown and unknowable to me that allow me to exist. There are of course my parents, whose coupling was unexpected, whose endurance (63 years and counting) as a union was perhaps unlikely, wagered over even. They decided to marry, to raise a family; they chose to sacrifice their individual visions of very individual futures so that my sibling and I might have lives they hoped would build upon their own. Long before their singular decisions, however, was the single decision of each of my ancestors, and thus my parents’ ancestors made one generation to the next generation before and so was the single decision, the single act, to survive. I cannot fathom all that they endured and all that they swallowed so that I might one day wield this pen I hold in wonder.
What are some single decisions made in your family that changed the course of things? Decision made by your parents? Made by your grandparents or other relatives? Note: this single decision might be the detail around which you organize the Sankofa story you tell.
Writing: Thursday, March 10, 2022 There are so many letters I would like to receive. Not emails or Facebook instant messages or extensive texts. No, I would relish going down the four flights of stairs of my apartment building to the mailbox, inserting the key with sweet anticipation, followed by the trek back upstairs which wouldn’t feel like such a trek because I would have in my hands a prize that would unlock an enigma wrapped inside a mystery. Upon using my index finger cautiously to slide open the flap, I would know, I would understand, the past that produced my present, the people without whom I would not be. My father would come into focus. He would cease to be the collection of stories I have gathered and the family tree I have on the periphery helped him construct. He would be a man of emotions, a full range of them and I would know what grief brought him to his knees and what joy lifted his heart upon wings. My mother would no longer be mom or Mrs. Moore, she would be Dot or Dorothy Mae in all her glory and I would know what it meant to be a passenger in her uncle’s jalopy, bouncing along dirt roads and interstate highways out of no-spot-on-the-map Tangipahoa, Louisiana bound for Chicago with the dream of college and classrooms, teachers and teaching; being a member of the village raising a community’s children rather than being the entire village herself.
BUILD IT, PROMISE IT, ADVERTISE IT & THEY WILL COME
Moore Sankofa March 23, 2022 Nathaniel Moore and Dorothy Mae McGee were individually part of the same wave, a human tsunami of Black Southerners making what Isabel Wilkerson distilled to the power of a single decision: to leave “home” for the unknown and the possibile. This wave, the Great Migration, covering over fifty years, dumped upwards of six million folks in cities bustling with industry that promised greater freedom, greater peace, greater success, and greater futures. The realities were infinitely more complicated. Picture, then, a 27 year old Black man, recently returned from service in the Korean War. He works alongside two older brothers at the Portsmouth, Virginia naval yards, labor that comes in fits and starts as ships arrive and depart – busy for stretches and thus flush with life sustaining funds followed by little work and not enough money to go around. Fits and starts too reminiscent of a childhood dominated by want, and need, and extended family but little else. Now picture that same man focused on a dog-eared advertisement, creased down the center worn almost bare, representing hope of more than labor, more than inconsistency, but rather an identity, a career, steady employment, and a foundation upon which to grow, all promised through enrollment at Coyne Electrical School in Chicago. “Make this the most profitable and enjoyable season of your life. Come to Chicago, on beautiful Lake Michigan, the greatest Spring and Summer Resort City in the country and the Greatest Electrical Center in the World.
Twelve weeks from now you can be an Electrical Expert no matter what you are doing today.” Nathaniel believed in the promise, and so he came. He left behind two older brothers and their families. He left behind intermittent work and consistent southern inhospitableness. He left behind the known, easily and without fear, because, according to him, “he didn’t have anything to lose.” Take a look at a much different photograph. That of a young Black woman, only 17 years of age, mere months after graduating from the O.W. Dillon High School for Negroes in Kentwood, Louisiana. Raised on a farm by sharecropping parents, the oldest girl child with five siblings, Dorothy Mae is keenly aware of what her future may hold if she stays in Tangipahoa, a one square mile town just off Interstate 55, not big enough for a single stop light, not even big enough to make it on most maps. Dorothy Mae had spent a lifetime already, waking before dawn to walk 3.5 miles to school each way, picking strawberries in the field during harvesting time, along with planting, and weeding, and hauling after school alongside her family working for someone else’s profit, certainly not their own. Though she was surrounded by family and connectedness, as soon as she was able, Dorothy Mae headed to the “big city,” Baton Rouge, and her mother’s sister, Aunt Myrtle’s, home to work and save for a different kind of life. First washing dishes at a motel/restaurant for $18 a week, moving up to $20 a week as a salad girl. Still, profits for someone else, but powerfully, labor for herself.
Unlike Nathaniel who knew no one in Chicago, Dorothy Mae had a trail of relatives to follow. Her paternal grandfather’s brother, “Uncle Doc,” was the first to leave Louisiana before WWII, members of the next paternal generation followed after WWII: her Uncles Herman, Thomas, Willy and Aunts Vera and Myrtle. They lived in and around Washington Park and Englewood and worked in various factories and the Post Office. So when her Uncle Herman and Aunt Vera returned to Tangipahoa, LA for a funeral and told the then 18 year old Dorothy Mae that she should come with them when they returned to Chicago, she put her belongings, and her fear, in a little suitcase and a brown paper bag, took a seat in an old, smoky car her Uncle drove, and left all she knew for an opportunity at all she didn’t. Envision if you can the following: It is 1958, Nathaniel has graduated from Coyne Electrical School, has hired on at American District Telegraph Company where he would later become the first Black man at the Chicago location to become an electrician. He proudly drives a cherry red, 1957 Chevy Bel Air and works part time at the main Post Office building on Congress Parkway. There he meets Dorothy Mae who is also working at that post office branch. Though their story is infinitely more complicated, part of it is this: one day at work Dorothy offers Nathaniel an apple, he takes it, and the rest is told through their 63 years of marriage, the five children they raised and educated through college, the house they watched being built from dirt and wood and brick into a home, and all the stories woven in between.
Sankofa urges each of us to look back and in so doing collect and bring forward that which teaches us, that which feeds our spirits, that which helps us grow. This is a task not to be taken lightly. I have been trying for weeks to find my words. I have been trying for weeks to do a thing that has always been so easy: pull from the ether sounds and syllables that build sentences which possess meaning. I have been trying for weeks to tell my parents’ story, to bring forth their lives in such a way that a reader might say: I see them, Nathaniel and Dorothy Mae Moore. I have been trying for weeks to hint at the stories of all those other ancestors whose lives made Nathaniel’s life and Dorothy’s life possible. I have been trying for weeks and I have found myself lacking. So, I pause in this moment, again, I sit in the stillness of my fingers as they lightly rest upon the keys. I pause now to accept, to acknowledge, that I cannot tell their story, and by extension my own, alone. Their lineage is long and their stories are heavy with love, and loss, and lifetimes too valuable to be taken lightly by my pen or by my keystroke. As Maya Angelou once wrote, “Nobody, but nobody can make it out here alone.” Simply put, I believe that I am a tool of sorts and they, all the ghosts who walked before me and those who walk still, are the fertile soil in our ancestral garden that I must dutifully tend.
I learned that before I was born I had lived in men (and women) who were...
I learned that before I was born I had lived in men (and women) who were...
RESOURCES
African American genealogy: https://www.newberry.org/african-american-genealogy Black, Jr., Timuel. Bridges of Memory. Chicago’s First Wave of Black Migration. Evanston, Ill., Northwestern University Press, 2003 “The Black Metropolis Research Consortium: Fifteen Years of Preserving and Documenting Black History and Culture in Chicago - the Black Metropolis Research Consortium: - the University of Chicago Library.” Www.lib.uchicago.edu, www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/black-metropolis-research-consortium-fifteenyears-preserving-and-documenting-black-history-and-culture-chicago/ Cook County Historic Archives and Records Office. https://www.cookcountyil.gov/archives Dumelle, Grace. Finding Your Chicago Ancestors : A Beginner’s Guide to Family History in the City and Cook County. Chicago, Lake Claremont Press, 2005. Episode 101 – Bronzeville. bronzevilleseries.com/episode-101/. Accessed 22 Mar. 2022.
Gross, Terry. “It's More than Racism: Isabel Wilkerson Explains America's 'Caste' System.” NPR, NPR, 4 Aug. 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/08/04/898574852/its-more-than-racism-isabel-wilkersonexplains-america-s-caste-system. Jeffries, Hasan Kwame. “Why We Must Confront the Painful Parts of US History.” Www.ted.com, Feb. 2020, www.ted.com/talks/hasan_kwame_jeffries_why_we_must_confront_the_painful_parts_of_us_history . “Jim Crow Museum - Ferris State University.” Ferris.edu, 2019, www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/. “Mapping the Stacks : A Guide to Black Chicago’s Hidden Archives.” Mts.lib.uchicago.edu, mts.lib.uchicago.edu/ Moore, Natalie. The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation. New York: Picador Press, 2017. Newberry Library Genealogy and Local History Collections https://www.newberry.org/genealogy-andlocal-history “Shame of Chicago.” Shame of Chicago, www.shameofchicago.org/home#trailer.
Smith, Nicka. Genealogist. https://www.whoisnickasmith.com/ St Clair Drake, et al. Black Metropolis : A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. Chicago (Ill.); London, The University Of Chicago Press, Cop, 2015. “Watch in Our Mothers’ Gardens | Netflix.” Www.netflix.com, www.netflix.com/watch/81354661?source=35. Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. New York, Random House, 2020. Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns. New York, Random House, 2010. Wright, Richard. The Ethics of Living Jim Crow. 1937.
SAY THEIR NAMES IABB 2.0 SANKOFA STORIES APRIL 2022