Oh okay I see how it‘s going to be. Back and forth, back and forth, up and down through time 😑
Oh okay I see how it‘s going to be. Back and forth, back and forth, up and down through time 😑
What a heart breaking historical journey. These are the kinds of books we need: books that tell the truth about America‘s history: visceral, raw, and brutally honest. Slavery was much worse than what we can imagine. My home city, Charleston, will forever carry this shameful, ugly stain. This book centers on the journey of Ashley‘s sack, gifted to her by her mother Rose, on the eve of her sale, sometime in the 1850s—before finding its way to⬇️
An auction block was a real thing. We sometimes forget this. We allow the physicality of a rock worn smooth by time and the press of bare, stolen feet to slip from our awareness. But these mundane things – a concrete block, a wooden set, a hollow stump – were props for the ritual dehumanization of a people. Much like the “uniform” of Negro cloth, the auction block set a group apart in order to lower their social status and justify their⬇️
Enslavers tended to name their human property in ways that reaffirmed their own status and authority, while simultaneously demeaning the people named. The result was a denial of enslaved people‘s surnames, a slew of personal names that were the shortened form of European names (like Beck, Harry, or Jenny), names more fitting for household pets (like Hero, Cupid, or Captain), and names reminiscent of classical figures (like Dido, Caesar, or Venus)
How did we arrive here, with the memory of a tattered dress and yet another Black mother‘s daughter on an auction block? How did South Carolina become a place where the sale of a colored child was not only possible but probable? The answer lies in the willingness of an entire society to bend its shape around a set of power relations that structured human exploitation along racial lines for financial gain. While vending Black people to underwrite⬇️
Today the brick walls of Charleston seem picturesque, luxuriously fringed by palmetto fronds, burnt-orange trumpet vines, and snow-white gardenias hot with perfume. We admire the Old World intricacy of this storied city while taking photos of Charleston‘s famous iron gates. We see the tall, striking walls as elaborate garden boxes resplendent here as nowhere else in the nation. We gaze with longing glances at the seeming romance of another age⬇️
The Miles Brewton House fence with mounted spikes, 27 King Street, Charleston. The spikes were added to the plain ironwork fence after Denmark Vesey‘s rebellion plot of 1822.
💔
The particular Rose recalled to memory by Ruth Middleton‘s looping stitch may have been given this name by a mother or a caretaker. She could have been called Rose, a flower of Old English derivation, by one of the people who owned her. She may have garnered the nickname Rose because she loved summer blossoms. She may have borne a rose-shaped scar on the tender skin of her back. And she was not alone, this woman named Rose, whose naming remains⬇️
It is a madness, if not an irony, that unlocking the history of unfree people depends on the materials of their legal owners, who held the lion‘s share of visibility in their time and ours. Captive takers‘ papers and government records are often the only written accounting of enslaved people who could not escape and survive to tell their own stories. The wealthier and more influential the slaveholder, the more likely it is that plantation and ⬇️
It is the world‘s shortest slave narrative , stripped down to its essence, sent back to us through time like a message in a bottle.
The supple bends of the Ashley River ribbon the edge of the property. Dirt paths lead to stone ruins and delicate reflecting ponds shaped like butterfly wings—ponds that enslaved people dug by hand out of steaming, mosquito-thick mud banks. These pools are among the many luxuries exorbitant wealth bought in Charleston, one of this country‘s richest towns in the era of the American Revolution, due to rice and cotton profits of legalized slavery.
Just as Rose and Ashley found on their forced journeys through slavery landscape, there is no safe place of escape left for us. The walls of the world are closing in. We need to get out of here in a hurry. We need to get out of these frames of mind and states of emotion, that elevate mastery over compassion, division over connection, and greed over care, separating us one from another, and locking us in. Our only options in this predicament, ⬇️
Based on the hit BBC show of the same name, this is the first of several memoirs of midwifery in Poplar, England, in the 1950s. Nonnatus House isn‘t a real place but it is named after a 13th century Saint, Raymond Nonnatus. Here, Jennifer shares the humbling experiences she had while working as a midwife and living with nuns.Life was hard and inequities rampant. During this time, forced sterilization, the lack of contraception, lack of access to⬇️
This is a heart warming book that‘s about several things. One woman and how she touched the lives of everyone around her, the difference she made in the world, always striving to be of service to others. The relationship she had with her son, her love of books and how she took what she learned from them and applied it to her being. And finally, how she chose to face death and did the things she loved until her final moments. Recommended.
She never wavered in her conviction that books are the most powerful tool in the human arsenal, that reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose—electronic (even though that wasn‘t for her) or printed, or audio—is the grandest entertainment, and also is how you take part in the human conversation.Mom taught me that you can make a difference in the world and that books really do matter: they‘re how we know what we need to do in life⬇️
This book reminded me a lot of Lily and the Octopus. I will always think of cancerous growths as octopi from now on. I asked AI for an image a man with an octopus sitting on his chest and this is what it gave me. I suppose it fits. Brown skin, and the octopus seems to be spreading itself everywhere.
This AI image makes the firemen look happy to see books burning. Let‘s hope this isn‘t our future…we‘re nearly there.
I have been trying to read as much as I can about neurological conditions such as Alzheimer‘s and Dementia. Volunteering in Hospice, and working a for few months in home health has taught me a lot. My father and step-mom both have Alzheimer‘s, so these books are very helpful but it‘s still hard. This book discusses some history of mental illness and its institutions, and stories of loved ones who have had these diseases. It discusses the⬇️
This is a raw, heartbreaking and beautiful story about a neurosurgeon becoming the patient when he is diagnosed with cancer. He chose to keep going and meet it head on, living authentically until he took his last breath. His wife wrote such a beautiful epilogue in addition to the story he wrote of this journey. A book about courage, loss, death, and living. Highly recommend.
Rudolf Vrba/Walter Rosenberg, was the first of 60,000 Jews who were deported from Slovakia between March and October 1942. He was the first to escape the hell of Auschwitz and just one of only four to do so. His friend Fred Wetzler escaped with him. Walter was caught and taken to Majdanek and was there for twelve days; from there he went to Auschwitz, having heard of something better called ‘Kanada‘. He had no idea what nightmares awaited⬇️
Gorgeous, clever and cool bookmarks I found at Target recently. You can never have too many bookmarks, am I right?! Link to purchase your own if you feel like you or someone you know needs them in your/their life: https://www.target.com/p/dabney-lee-bookmarks-set-of-3-faux-leather-tassel-bookm.... (Only $8 for the set)!
I finally made it to the Timrod Library since becoming a member a few weeks ago. It was my first time looking around. I went in looking specifically for the Sally Hemings novel, having seen the spine when there a few weeks ago. I had to explore the whole library (it‘s bigger than the one by my house), and told myself don‘t get too carried away! Before I can start these, I have to finish the one I just started today, from my own library!
Our former SC State Representative talks about poverty and growing up in rural Denmark, the little known Orangeburg Massacre, running for office, equity, equality, the ongoing problem of Black Womxn‘s mortality & morbidity in healthcare, and the continuing legacy of the stain of slavery. He talks about what anll of this is like while being Black, especially in the Deep South. Denmark isn‘t far from where I currently live, and I was never taught⬇️
How many of us have to be murdered before someone does something? And if we wait on older Americans to do something, then the likelihood of it getting done isn‘t high at all. It‘s an undeniable fact that black lives matter, but some people like to say, “All lives matter.” However, that‘s like saying at a breast cancer awareness rally that all cancer matters. It‘s true: all lives matter; but there‘s not a question about the value of police⬇️
I‘d have to write another book to explore the issues surrounding race and religion. But if I did, I‘d argue that one of the more disappointing narratives of this racial divide in our country has been the silence of white, male, Christian evangelicals. People may roll their eyes about this, but I firmly believe that in my relationship with God, I‘m probably going to be in line ahead of Jerry Falwell Jr. and other evangelical heirs like Franklin⬇️
The fact that South Carolina is a deep red state makes it pretty likely that their friends and relatives will vote Republican, and have in the past, and therefore against policies that could help them eat and help them survive. But the legislators whom they choose vote against such policies because some people in certain political and media circles consider those policies to be geared toward helping only poor black people. How do poor whites⬇️
Why does dark skin so offend white people? There‘s no value in skin color itself. It adds nothing to or detracts from a person‘s skills, heart, or humanity, any more than eye or hair color does. So why have people with dark skin been terrorized for centuries, to this very day, and held in such contempt? Why were we enslaved for 250 years?
Rebuilding a white community and a black community are two totally different things. Because black folk were stripped of everything, we have to rebuild our communities mentally, physically, spiritually, and economically.
I know people say we almost pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but that doesn‘t give value to being poor, black, and isolated in America. In rural segregated areas like Denmark and Orangeburg, black people live similarly to how they lived during the Jim Crow era. Regardless of class, we reside in the same black neighborhoods, often attending the same black schools in the same black churches.The children play and grow up together among the same⬇️
‘Fresh Ginger Gingerbread‘. Omg it smells divine and tastes even better. There are bits of crunchy ginger scattered within, and fresh ginger root was thrown in the batter. I‘ve already had several pieces! Sharing with co-worker friends tomorrow. It‘s so good, I may have to make more this weekend!
First recipe made from this book tonight. I just spontaneously decided to do it since I had everything and it was so simple.
It is so good!!!! *I used way less sugar: only 1/4 cup plus the 2tbls.
I was never a fan of Brittany‘s music, and I wouldn‘t have read this book had a friend not literally put it in my hand. But now that I‘ve read it, I‘m glad that I did. I remember some of the events she mentions in this book, when they happened; I remember seeing the photos on magazines everywhere. She went through a lot. A family that abused and exploited her as a child, as an adolescent, and as an adult. This book reads like a child wrote it.⬇️
My library check outs today.
Joseph Bologne, the 18th century Black classical musician and composer we weren‘t told about!
I loved this book. A tale of one very gifted Black man, his relationship with his ancestors, and the gift they gave him: the Stradivarius violin. I loved how the author made the story so personal, reflecting on the real events in his own life, the daily struggles of being Black. I especially loved the backstory of the violin and would like to see a novel based on that. Shown: Black Violin is a duo of a Black take on classical music; I saw⬇️
I got to meet the author today and hear him speak alongside author Joseph McGill Jr. I was very fortunate to have their books signed for me afterwards.
Link to the poetry of Henry Timrod here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/845/845-h/845-h.htm
I‘ll be reading about this man and what he had to say in his poetry. I am sure there is something important to be found in it, regarding the painful and ugly stain of slavery in the South.
Authors Joseph McGill Jr and Herb Frazier came to the historic Timrod Library today to talk about their book ‘Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery‘. Herb is the author of several other books. Spending the night in the old slave dwellings is a powerful way to get in touch with the ancestors. Having deep and hard conversations about race and privilege around the campfire before going to sleep in the cabin, is a⬇️
Whole wheat cheddar scallion rolls are fresh out of the oven. I planted the root ends of the onions outside to grow from scraps.
Pretty (and cutely stamped) eggs gifted to us from a coworker friend who has chickens.
Democratic Primary 2024, SC: this song came on right after I voted. 🤣
This book continues the legacy of Bluet from book 1. This is a story about finding your place in the world, your joy—when everything is taken away from you, and pushing back. Some things in the story are real: the Pack Horse Librarians, and the blue skin folx. Blue skin can be caused by a number of things including genetics, inbreeding, and other medical conditions. TW/CW: misogyny, domestic violence
Enjoy this AI image of Packhorse Librarians in 1930s Kentucky delivering books alongside Troublesome Creek.
*these AI creations are always off somehow and therefore funny.
This book presents some ideas worth considering. Social media was created for connection but it has grown into something else and there is no stopping it. Algorithms are everywhere and not only decide things for you, but build different kinds of walls around you (disinformation, economic walls, loss of physical, emotional connection—to name a few). You have to decide for yourself what you want to do with it. It causes harm but there is also⬇️
This book discusses the ship routes taken by the peoplx we call ‘Vikings‘ and also the long fascination we‘ve had with them. We know they were the first to discover America. The sagas aren‘t just stories, they contain actual history; some of the places mentioned are thought to be places in America, and Canada. What is it about these ancient peoplx that fascinates us so much? This book delves into that question, exploring the many things they⬇️
My husband and I love Impossible and Beyond plant ‘meats‘. The possibilities are endless! These books have many great cultural recipes in them. We‘ve already been ‘cooking outside the box‘ before I found these. I‘m excited to do more with these! I‘m not really into meat and can live without it. The way we get our food and eat it has got to change because this system isn‘t sustainable.
Who are my fellow bakers here? Comment below! I‘ve been using KA flours ever since I started cooking. Their products are high quality, their recipes wonderful. I‘m trying to do healthier baking and found this copy on eBay for very cheap; I didn‘t realize it was autographed! I have never taken a class and there is so much I don‘t know. I have always wanted to visit the KAF store in Vermont. I can‘t wait to make the hummus bread and cheddar⬇️
I checked out this book not knowing what it was about, but loving the cover art that looks like ink blot and a pelvis. The first part really captured me, because I have the gift of psychometry too. The rest I felt was a bit long. I didn‘t expect the twist but I didn‘t like the ending. This book is a lot like M. Night Shyamalan‘s The Village. Cult mentality, deep isolation, Stockholm Syndrome. I‘d like to see this adaptated onto the screen.