I have created this website to explore a subject I am drawn to: why do we feel the need to connect to the past? I have read answers to that question
I recently heard these words from the pulpit:
“This is the conversation … that must take place”
These words have stuck with me.
The conversation has been going on for a long time. But I never heard it. I tuned it out. Why? I want to answer that, but allow me to do so later when we can sit with the answer a bit. For now, I want you to know that I have begun to listen to the conversation. And slowly, join in. I love the people who are in the conversation (well, most of them !) because they also have recently begun to hear, and join in, the conversation. I love being with them because they are slowly feeling their way just like I am. I love how I feel during these conversations. And I love what I am learning - about myself and the world.
“Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.”
– Thurgood Marshall
A piece of brick
I recently received this piece of brick from a friend, Beverly. She resides in California, and I know her through Coming To The Table (CTT), an organization focused on those whose family trees include enslavers, or the enslaved, or both. I see Bev monthly on Zoom as we participate in a small CTT Writing Pod. An accomplished geneologist, she has traced her African-American lineage to the Lewellen family of Holly Springs, Mississippi. Bev recently learned of my interest in the brickmaking of the enslaved, and mailed me this piece of a brick made by the enslaved at the Lewellen plantation in Mississippi. It is not more than 2 inches long, and easily fits in the palm of my hand.
Make it stand out.
