I recently read the book “Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade” which, provided me insight to my research giving me ideas and new directions I could take but more importantly a very intimate portrait of two people on a journey together.
I will not go into a deep book review here, you can find plenty of those on Amazon but I do want to talk about why I read this book and what I hoped to gain from the reading. In the first third of reading I came across a quote, which struck me to my core, “An African proverb says: ‘You are not dead as long as someone remembers your name.’” (p.78) This project originally started out being called “They have names” as a way to give names and voices to those slaves who lived in St. Cloud, MN and were deprived of both. I have read and re-read this passage many times and I cannot get around how powerful one’s name is. Being able to not only have their names listed but constructing their stories, keeps them alive and weaves their story into our history in a more significant way.
The epicenter of my research is based in St. Cloud, MN-the least diverse place I have ever lived. However, the history of St. Cloud is both complex and messy, as it is with the US in general. Thomas DeWolf and Sharon Morgan went through a process of exploring the physical places where slavery took place and thus a psychological journey at the same time. They provided each other a safe space to explore, ask questions, and argue about the repercussions from the legacy of slavery.
Through reading this book I became more aware of the feelings I was dealing with as I research the slaves from St. Cloud. Confronting the existence of slavery in a free state is paradigm shifting and I had to confront my own notions of how I thought history had been divided and the reality so many lines being blurred. While some people were abolitionist’s they were, at the same time, complicit in the genocide of the Native Americans in the Minnesota Territory. Sharon expresses why this is such a difficult process, she says, “Injustice piled on injustice piled on injustice, over and over again, century after century, all over the world. I know we have to move on, but damn! It is hard-harder than anything I have ever tried to do.” (p. 88) This quote resonated with me because I feel like we have never reconciled as a country about these injustices and we, as a country, should accept our history as complicated as it was resiting the urge to sanitize it.
This is a deeply thoughtful post. Two profound ideas intersect here: First, the power of a name. Excellent point. Recovering the names of slaves, as you are doing in St. Cloud, helps to restore the power of their identity. A wonderful project, Taking away their names, as the (criminal, to me) institution of slavery did, was one injustice among so many outrages.
This leads the second idea, when you quote Sharon about “injustice piled on injustice piled on injustice.” I completely agree with you, that we as a country have never reconciled these injustices nor really admitted, as it was, our history of slavery. I also have read Morgan and DeWolf’s book and believe they are together doing something very brave . . . trying to approach healing by a journey through the truth.
Kathleen Brandt, @a3Genealogy, is starting a project to record slave marriages…I believe in MO? If you don’t know her already, I imagine you would like to connect.
Great post!
Hey, follow me and I can DM you about how I’ve spread news of you blog!
I’ve followed you on Twitter but I cannot seem to find away to follow your blog or website.
Hi, Lizzie — I just copied your blog site onto my Feedly, and it said “added,” so I’ll expect to see your blog posts popping up there. Maybe you’ve had trouble following my blog because I just got a new WordPress blog site. Now it’s http://mariannsregan.com. I don’t know if you use a Feedly or some other reader . . . but this blog site ought to work. And I’m following you on Twitter, also!
Great! Thank you for reading and leaving your comments-giving me feedback and commenting makes posting seem worth it! I am glad that I’m not just researching for the sake of it but through the process can help work through some of these issues with other people who have been grappling with them too.
Here at St. Cloud State University we have a Diversity Conference every year and I’m trying to plant the seeds hoping we could bring Sharon and Tom to our campus for this type of discussion. Reckoning with our past can help us move forward as we deal new changes in the racial make-up of our country and communities.
Thank you for letting me know about Ms. Brandt’s project, it sounds very interesting!