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What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches? —ISAIAH
How long, did you think, after all of this, it would be before their souls finally came for you in the night? These
Mira
Celine,
Phillip
Hunnicut family
Aldridge
Honey Leaf Tobacco?
dentist
practice.
scrawny and tall, ashy knees and elbows. His freckled golden skin and the Afro of curls the sun had tinted a reddish-brown.
A person moved through the world with no knowledge and no assurances, only hope and faith to guide them through the belief they were making the right decisions.
They were invisible men. Numbers and not names. They had lost the privilege of being seen, existing on the periphery from the rest of the world, lost and forgotten.
red—nigger
Mira knew what her mother
meant, as if that was all it would take to alter her life’s trajectory, as if as long as she did these things—lived a life of yes and no ma’am pleasantries, of never speaking beyond the answer to a question, of being watchful of her tone, even when upset, of never asking, never challenging, of being polite, respectable—somehow, in some way, she would be saved.
Keisha Parker
Every
day the world reminded him, both directly and subtly, that because he was black his life held different rules, and Jesse behaved the way he did in defiance of this reality.
what Mira learned that day was how easy it was to let someone convince you of their truth instead of believing in your own.
To believe, one must care, and who’s to say anyone ever cared? That’s what her mother had tried to tell her. That’s what she’d tried to make her see. Who was to say anyone ever cared—for Jesse, for her, for any of the black kids like them? Who’s to say anyone ever cared at all?
Who could look at this and not see it for what it was? To not see the slave system the cabin represented? Instead of a slave cabin they saw a modest-looking room they could have lived in and ignored the truth. None of them wanted to see anything else because the narrative that had been created affirmed whatever falsehoods people wanted to believe.
To marvel at the twisted limbs of the surrounding trees, their branches climbing toward the sky, toward their heaven, and not see lynching trees.
She felt shame for participating, for coming and being complicit. She felt shame for the circumstances that had led to a place like this existing. Shame for the realization that even after all these years of progress, this was where we’d come, to this corrupted version of the past we all thought we’d left behind.
Mr. Loomis,
Sons bear the sins of the fathers,
“They’re going to make millions off this land. It’s not even theirs. It’s ours. Yours, mine, and every black person. Our ancestors were the ones who built this place.
memory can shift in its recalling, making the past become not what one remembers but what one believes. Mira
Now see that possum he works hard. Hoe, Emma, hoe. You turn around, dig a hole in the ground. Hoe, Emma, hoe. But he can’t work as hard as
me.
Hoe, Emma, hoe. You turn around, dig a hole in the ground. Hoe, Emma, hoe. He sits a horse just as pretty as can be.
Hoe, Emma, hoe. You turn around, dig a hole in the ground. Hoe, Emma, hoe. He can ride on and leave me be.
But what if when faced again with that space in time they decided to choose another path? This was what they asked themselves—what if we resisted further, refusing to stop? What if we clamored and yelled, fought in every way we could? And what if we weren’t alone? What if it was all of us together rising? Can you imagine it? Can you imagine what we could do?
Master, he be a hard, hard man. Sell my people away from me.
Lord, send my people into Egypt land. Lord, strike down Pharaoh and set them free.
Mrs. Woodsman put the treat in her palm and balled her hand into a fist. “Spin,” she commanded, and Lucy lifted a leg and turned herself around, spinning her body in a loop. She finished with a little kneel and Mrs. Woodsman exclaimed, dropping the treat for Lucy to pick up off the floor. “Oh, good job,” she said. “Do it once more. Spin.” Lucy did as she was told, spinning in another loop, but this time Mrs. Woodsman didn’t let her stop. “Spin, spin, spin!” she yelled, and Lucy spun round and round, laughing at first, but the longer she had to do it the quieter she got, and Mrs. Woodsman kept
...more
turn
until she lost her balance and fell to the floor. Her face was scrunched up in pain and confusion. “No treat for you,” Mrs. Woodsman said. “I didn’t tell you to stop. What have I told you about not listening? You need to do better. You don’t want to end up like those—” Lucy’s eyes welled up, and seeing her face, Mrs. Woodsman stopped. “Well, next time. Maybe you’ll follow directions,” she huffed.
Bihh wtf
Lucy got on her hands and knees and began to crawl across the floor. She crawled toward what looked like a wire
cage.
It was barely big enough for ...
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The metal brushed against her back as she squeezed herself inside. She was unable to stand so she curled into a ball on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees as M...
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“There, there. Such a good little nig.
Wow im about to throw my kindle
when I say that he told me they came from the skin of
Negroes?
There’s a whole market for human leather, and not just for shoes.”
Your tongue. Organs. Teeth. Skin.
Every day I see I struggle.
he brought the flesh near to his own, slowly breathed in the scent. He closed his eyes and inhaled. He took another breath before bringing this mask of skin to his face, layering it on top of his own.
