Happy Land Quotes

“Then I’d turn around and walk the path back to the palace, carrying the hope that my children and my children’s children would make something even better, that they’d carry with them the memory that we had tried our best to give them something like home.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“If you want to learn more about the Kingdom of the Happy Land, you can visit the link at my website: dolenperkinsvaldez.com.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Using Census of Agriculture data, scholars conservatively estimate that African Americans lost $326 billion in land wealth between 1910 and 1997. I was stunned by the magnitude of this loss and its continued impact on racial economic disparity in the United States. There was no way I could tell this story of the kingdom without connecting it to its full context. Heirs’ property loss continues to this day. There is remarkable work happening at the state level to ensure families are protected from this injustice. I have been inspired by the work of legal scholar and 2020 MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Thomas W. Mitchell, the primary architect of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA), a legislation that helps close the legal loophole of land loss among rural American families by ensuring there is due process. As of now, twenty-four states have enacted the legislation and six have introduced it.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Most times, you walked up to a courthouse and you had to pass by a Confederate statue just to enter the front door. It was like they was telling you that you weren’t welcome and never would be. It wasn’t coincidence that they put those statues in front of courthouses. They were meant to intimidate.” Her voice is low and angry.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Nearly a hundred and fifty years prior to my conception, Luella fought to save the land for her family so they could have a place to call home. Now we have been able to do the same. Together, the women of this family have saved this land and legacy, used our smarts to keep us here on this mountain that has given us refuge. I didn’t think we could do it, but we did. We were only able to save four acres, but it is enough. More than enough. Now our entire family will be stewards of this place once again, will understand this rootedness is a gift. When we call ourselves kings and queens, it isn’t just a fantasy of Black pride. It means something. I am the descendant of a queen, a real queen, and I guess that makes me one, too.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Beneath that sun, I make a promise to myself. If I'm fortunate enough to be granted more time on this earth, I will read more books. I will plant lots of flowers. I will be the great-great-great-granddaughter of Queen Luella's dreams.

In this field, once tended by men and women stepping out of their past and into their future, I will seek the footsteps they left behind and I will walk in them.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Those kingdom people walked up that mountain, fleeing violence, daring to make their own community. They grew their own food, bartered, traded, pooled their resources, and made a life. They bought a little over two hundred acres and then fought like hell to hold on to it. Now we've lost it. All because we didn't believe.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Those kingdom people walked up that mountain, felling violence, daring to make their own community. They grew their own food, bartered, traded, pooled their resources, and made a life. They bought a little over two hundred acres and then fought like hell to hold on to it. Now we've lost it. All because we didn't believe.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“impact on racial economic disparity in the United States.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Census of Agriculture data, scholars conservatively estimate that African Americans lost $326 billion in land wealth between 1910 and 1997.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“our people used to know over there. We talking about different tongues and ways. But one thing we always knew was that we lived a life in that other land across the ocean before we was brought here in the dark of ships and worked to death.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“uniformlaws.org. If you want to learn more about the Kingdom of the Happy Land, you can visit the link at my website: dolenperkinsvaldez.com. The freedpeople who established the Kingdom of the Happy Land were not unlike millions of people who dreamed of land ownership, standing firm in their belief that property was the surest path to full citizenship and the benefits therein. Oh, how they dreamed! Oh, how they imagined!”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“believe they originated from Cross Anchor, South Carolina, driven out of Spartanburg County under the threat of terrorist violence. Over the years, the kingdom’s existence has been corroborated by field researchers and kingdom descendants. Many of the details of the kingdom in this novel are inspired by newly discovered facts from the archives, though I admit I have taken liberties, as any good storyteller must.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“In fall of 1873, a group of freedpeople left Spartanburg County, South Carolina, headed north across the state line into North Carolina. Near Zirconia, North Carolina, the people established a remote community that they called a kingdom. They named a king and queen, formed a communal treasury, and eventually purchased 205 acres of land in 1882 from John Davis, land that was spread across the North Carolina–South Carolina state line. Approximately half was deeded to Luella Montgomery and the other half to Robert Montgomery. At its height, it is believed the kingdom numbered over two hundred people. By the turn of the century, the kingdom began to decline in numbers, though some of the acreage stayed in the possession of kingdom descendants until 1919, when it was finally sold. Sadie Smathers Patton, a Henderson County historian, published a pamphlet in 1957 that has long been considered”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“What story? The story of how the Klan run us off? The story of how they accuse us of eating our own, how they beat the men if y’all dare vote?”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“We’d always known the power of language, in some ways more powerful than the whip, but it was during freedom that we took back our words, starting with what we called ourselves.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“once? The only difference between a married couple and a divorced couple is that one of them decided to stay.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“something your own is a powerful prayer and there was God in it.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Calling”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“neck, he was gathering into new fullness as a man. People”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Now that he was out in the wilderness without all them white men breathing down his”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“I’m just as busy as you, and I still find time to read nearly fifty books a year.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“Beneath that sun, I make a promise to myself. If I’m fortunate enough to be granted more time on this earth, I will read more books. I will plant lots of flowers. I will be the great-great-great-granddaughter of Queen Luella’s dreams. In this field, once tended by men and women stepping out of their past and into their future, I will seek the footsteps they left behind and I will walk in them.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“The spirits of my people still roam the kingdom and walk the land. They stand nearby, watching us.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“It was not lost on me that I loved them both. When I looked at the two brothers, I no longer compared them like I used to. I saw two different men who had been there for me in all the right ways and was grown enough to admit when they hadn’t. They was the Montgomery brothers, but they was also Robert and William, my two men. Robert, my lover. William, my friend. And I wouldn’t have it no other way.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“The question is…are you happy, Nikki? You know, four acres is enough to make a life.” Then she takes Maddie Mae by the hand and the two of them leave me alone in the garden, stunned and finally understanding that all of this, all along, was for me.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“That’s a note from R.J. congratulating you. Mother Rita, the judge ruled that you are the rightful owner of four acres here that include your house, garden, the cemetery, and the entire road frontage. It’s not everything, but it’s something.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“This place wasn’t just our home, it was our refuge.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“I didn’t know what to say to him. It felt like enough for forgiveness, but it couldn’t wash away my years of hurt. I had cried so many tears over this man, what we could have had, what we lost. But I couldn’t blame him for what slavery did to us, how it messed us up on the insides so that love became something more complicated than it was ever meant to be.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land

“This must be how love feels, I told myself. Comfortable. Respectful.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land