More on: ancestor

“Literature…can hold up those things that mainstream society doesn’t believe: that Black people are there. One of my jobs is just holding that up to the light so that everyone can see that they’re there.”

Two women, in separate instances, each blessed and healed a child in her care. Neither of these women had ever discussed the blessing with anyone before for fear it would be considered “inappropriate.” Another woman gathered her sister’s frail, cancer-ridden body in her arms and blessed her with one pain-free day.

She reads their names aloud, 
men, beloved to some, 
lynched in Little River County,
Arkansas, each appellation
engraved on a six-foot 
steel slab