The letter (written by my great-great grandmother, pictured on the left with my great-grandfather)

Living Memory

I recently discovered that my family has owned slaves since 1718 (?).

My grandmother gave me a book of photocopies for Christmas in 2005. Inside contained my family history- pages and pages of correspondence, photographs, maps, and wills. It contained much more than I realized, and as I began thoroughly examining it, it became clear to me that my family was very much involved in the colonization of this country. Page after page tells the story of my family, along with other families that kept my family prosperous. Families they owned. From 1718 until 1867 (?), my family owned approximately two thousand people.

I think this is what is missing in blockbuster museums, in our consciousness. What is missing is any conflict and any reason to feel bad about the past and learn from it- the great tragedy of America: move forward and never look back. Vernacular museums exist for the underdogs. They tell the stories of the under-represented and the poor, the suffering and the sweat that went into movements and even just every day life.

It’s time for recognitions. It’s not the rich alone that built the United States. I don’t need to see the beautiful gold-leafed picture frame or the maple banister with painted detail. I want to see the cracks, the uncomfortable language, the bottles decorating the trees, the things caught in the spokes. I want to know about the history of this place the way it really was.

Normal, Alabama (on the way to Shelbyville, Tennessee)

My great-great grandmother

Historical Amnesia

There is something missing from most major museums. In the huge effort to catalogue the highlights of our entire existence, some very important things have been left out -- there are no tears, no crooked picture frames or dented walls that someone punched, no gold leaf flaking off of the frames, no sunspot in the lens, no sweaty handprints. What we get is confusing: restored this, restored that, things that are supposed to change but don’t; a perfect example of how the privileged take care of things. A guy puts his elbow through a Picasso he is trying to sell- he sends it to the restorer and is promised it will look like new.

This preservation of “the perfect” is what is not honest. I’m not trying to say that bigshot museums are liars. They are just cleaned up a bit. They are polished and manicured and prepared to face the public… perfectly. As though nothing ever happened. As though all of the time things look like this. They are have a very specific intention: to show the accomplishments of the rulers and the powerful. But the brass gets polished, the paintings get dusted, the floors are waxed. What is invisible is the staff taking care of it all. Even more invisible are the slaves that made it all possible.

Where we come from has everything to do with who we are

slaves in the family

I've been reading "Slaves in the Family" by Edward Ball, purchased at the New York Historical Society Museum. This whole time I've been thinking I needed to find the descendents of the slaves my family owned and write a book about it. I was happy to see that Edward Ball did just that, which frees me up to work on this idea in my own way. A quote that stood out to me:

"The subject of the plantations stirred conflicting emotions. I felt proud (how rare the stories!) and sentimental (how touching the cast of family characters!). At the same, the slave business was a crime that had not fully been acknowledged. It would be a mistake to say that I felt guilt for the past. A person cannot be culpable for the acts of others, long dead, that he or she could not have influenced. Rather than responsible, I felt accountable for what had happened, called on to try to explain it. I also felt shame about the broken society that had washed up when the tide of slavery receded."

my family owns it and therefore I own it

What?!

Today my brother Jonathan flew in from Atlanta and we shared coffee and dinner and more coffee. He's really quiet so I got to talk a lot and we started discussing our family and the ownership of slaves in the past... this is all news to me. And quite shocking, since it's been something that was never mentioned in my family. I realized that the slave I am doing the project about (named Henry) is also the name of my great-grandfather. His namesake? I wonder.

her wedding rings

These are the wedding rings that my great-great grandmother wore.