The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of ups and downs that need no further explanation. I’ve enjoyed sharing ideas about writing and my responsibility to my community with y’all every week, but there are going to be things about my life that will forever remain between me and my Jesus. Getting on here and connecting with you has been wonderful, but my mama’s words stay ringing in my ears:
“Don’t you go telling people all your business.”
So I’ve been ripping and running and that’s all you get from me.
As for today, same rules as always: if you hear my dogs snoring or if I mess up a line or two, or whatever disruption comes our way, we’re just going to go with it, because that’s what we do here.
So today is about why words matter. As you know, I think about concepts and craft down to the word. I was raised to be a person of my word, that our word is our bond, that giving our word means the truth of a thing. That what you say and what you mean should be one in the same.
Yesterday, I talked to my friend Jason Mott. He’s my mentor, a dad joke connoisseur, and a man who knows a thing or two about stringing sentences together. From The Returned to Hell of a Book, Jason’s body of work is incisive, dynamic, thought-provoking, and often, just hilarious. We had a great call, during which we both expressed our gratitude for being in the business of thinking about how to craft ideas into the sentences we send into the world. We talked and laughed about how lucky we are that our job is to think about words.
As I’ve mentioned before, Moonrise Over New Jessup was written about a fictional Black town representing real Black history. Between the late 18th and early 20th centuries, approximately 1200 Black towns, settlements, bottoms, quarters, neighborhoods, Freedmen’s Towns, or however we call them, were founded on American soil upon the ideals of self-reliance and independence. Let me say that again for the cheap seats:
Black towns, settlements, bottoms, quarters, neighborhoods, Freedmen’s towns, or however we call them, were places where we aimed to live self-reliant and independent lives.
We pulled one another up the rough side of the mountain to create communities large and small—north and south of the Mason Dixon, and east and west of the Mississippi. Some places were a single block where one or two families owned all the real estate. Zora Neale Hurston’s Eatonville, Florida, was, according to her own words in Dust Tracks on the Road:
[A] Negro town. I do not mean by that the black back-side of an average town. Eatonville, Florida, is, and was at the time of my birth, a pure Negro town—charter, mayor, council, town marshal, and all. It was not the first Negro community in America, but it was the first to be incorporated, the first attempt at organized self-government on the part of Negroes in America.”
Eatonville was one of many places. Some grew even bigger, blossoming into communities numbering in the tens of thousands. True, many have been lost, but many are still around, still fighting towards thriving today. And these communities were founded with the goal of providing Black people a space where we could live independent and self-reliant lives.
So I’ve gotten some inquiries about whether New Jessup enjoyed “self-segregation” or “chosen segregation” or whether Black people in Black towns and settlements “preferred segregation” or whether “segregation was best for Black people.” The blessing and curse of being raised in a house where words meant the truth of a thing, then practicing law, only to become a full-time writer is that words have always carried significant weight with me. I can’t escape it, and I don’t pretend to be sorry about it. My goal is growth, and not perfection, which opens the door to opportunities to learn something new, and to bring something new, every day.
Today, I bring a word about the misnomer that is self, or chosen, segregation. What you will hear in Black towns and settlements is folks talking about independence, self-reliance, “We had our own,” and “We knew we could see it and be it.” You will hear Black folks talk about how we did for each other. Talk about larger than life educators, doctors, business owners, farmers, as well as the nice young woman who helped us at the grocery or the shoeshine man who helped us find our way. You will hear folks tell stories about being in loving community, or a rivaling community, with skinfolk all around us.
I realize that the words we know are the words we use, and that the word segregation is short hand for a number of ideas. But when we know better, we do better, so let’s call "segregation” what it is, and “self-reliance” what it is. Because what you won’t hear is that any of these folks chose, or preferred, segregation.
Segregation, the Black Codes, or “old Jim Crow” was a system of laws codifying white supremacy and legalizing economic, public accomodation, educational, environmental, physical, criminal justice, judicial, and medical racism against Black people. In a land where the second amendment is king supreme, it was illegal for us in some places to own dogs, let alone firearms. These were laws that said we couldn’t sit here, eat there, walk here, live there, pray here, learn there, swim here, or walk into front doors. White people drew sneaky little red lines on maps north and south with abandon, and there are restrictive covenants forbidding Black home ownership that still follow plots of real estate to this day. In some places, we couldn’t bear witness in a courtroom, serve on a jury, or dream about get a license to practice law. There were laws that relegated us to the back of buses and the peanut galleries in theaters; laws that criminalized unemployment and otherwise assured long-term and brutal incarceration for the pettiest of offenses. The converse effect of the laws that criminalized our unemployment protected white people when discriminating against us in employment. The same laws criminalizing murder and other heinous capital offenses shielded white people who perpetuated those crimes against us in unspeakably horrific ways. Segregation codified white supremacy and hate. Black people never chose any of that.
So let’s do away with this misnomer that Black people “chose” segregation, or that “segregation”--this system of racist laws—was “good for us.” My goal in writing this book, and to be out here speaking about Black history, is to put respect on my elders’ and ancestors’ names, and what they built for us. If nothing else in this life, I will not misrepresent my people and our history. When we talk about New Jessup and the 1200 Black towns and settlements it represents, let's fix our mouths to say that the folks living in these places wanted independence. They chose self-reliance as a means for achieving Black social progress in this country. Because it’s is a distinction with a world of difference. We wanted community with each other, where we could see a doctor and be a doctor; we could see a teacher and be a teacher. We never chose, or preferred, a system of laws designed for our persistent degradation. We never asked to be humiliated or traumatized.
We chose self-reliance and safe spaces. Full stop.
Let’s know better, and do better, and call "segregation” what it is, and “self-reliance” what it is. My hope is that Moonrise Over New Jessup serves as a catalyst for conversations where we interrogate our ideas. Including the ways we use language. The way words help. And the way they harm.
Thanks to all of you who visit with me every week, as well as my newest readers and viewers. If you like the content you find here, feel free to like, share, and subscribe for access to my newsletter. Until next time, thank you again for joining me at Lioness Tales. See you soon.
Putting to Rest the Idea that Black People "Preferred Segregation"