Throughout the Sahel region of Africa, women have long been the storytellers and weavers-of-history-into-tales told repeatedly over the centuries. The heroines in these tales are resourceful, and intelligent, who may play both the narrator and performer (El-Nour). These stories often brought both memorable events as well as everyday occurrences, social dictates, and cultural mores into the future so people would remember what had occurred in the past.
Harriet Wilson, born in Milford, New Hampshire in 1825 to an Afro-American father and white mother, was just such a person: a storyteller who through her autobiography, became the first published Afro-American author. She narrated her own history in her book Our Nig or Sketches of a Free Black published in 1859 with the hope of earning enough money to keep her and her son, George, alive. After it was published, thought originally to be the work of a white author, it became a controversial story told with an emotional and narrative power that was deemed “unsettling” to many who read it. It wasn’t just read in the United States, but had an international following as well (The Harriet Wilson Project).
What the book reveals is Wilson’s tenacity and drive to survive in spite of the odds. Between the ages of five and six, Harriet was abandoned by her mother and began serving as an indentured servant. She was able to attend school three months each year between 1832 and 1834 in Milford, NH. By the time she reached eighteen, she had taken on several other jobs serving local families, but her health began to fail between 1846 and 1850, when she was listed as a town pauper. In 1851 Harriet married Thomas Wilson in Milford, and by 1852 their son, George, was born at the Hillsborough County Poor Farm, where they were living. Just prior to this, Harriet had a small success when she published her poem, Fading Away, in the local Farmer’s Cabinet newspaper (The Harriet Wilson Project).
Harriet’s husband, Thomas, is said to have died in May of 1853. In 1855, she returned to live at the poor farm while George was sent to live as a foster child with a local family and eventually returned to the poor farm where he died at the age of seven in 1860. Harriet’s health was a continual issue which often left her on the edge of poverty even though she earned a small amount as a seamstress, servant, and seller of hair products throughout New England. Her hair product business began to make money and between 1857 and 1960, it is reported that she became self-sufficient. It was during this period that Our Nig was published. Her later years were spent in and around Boston where she was a lecturer and spiritualist. It is thought that she died in 1900 (The Harriet Wilson Project).
Seventy-four years after Wilson’s book was published, Henry Louis Gates discovered Wilson’s Afro-American heritage, republished the work, pulling it out of obscurity and putting it back on the shelves of contemporary readers (The Black Past). A statue of Wilson now stands in a park in Milford, NH.
El-Nour, Eiman Abbas H. "Not just a pretty face: Women as storytellers and subjects in the folktales of Northern Sudan." Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde 48.2 (2011): 171-185.
The Black Past, 2020. https://www.blackpast.org/.
The Harriet Wilson Project. http://www.harrietwilsonproject.net/.
In 2010, I moved to South Carolina from Virginia and made a new friend. I also learned about the Gullah-Geechee heritage in South Carolina. My friend’s mother, who passed away in 2004, was one of the country’s noted Gullah language experts. This is a brief story of how a group of enslaved West African people formed a nation in the North American continent and have preserved their heritage, identity, traditions, and culture for over 300 years.
At the heart of Gullah-Geechee cultural survival in North America is the creation of a new language that members of differing tribes could understand, but which remained unintelligible to the white society and masters that surrounded them. Historically, the language evolved as a Creole trade language in Sierra Leone in the 17th and 18th centries and was brought to North America with the Rice Slaves (Turner)
Its preservation, in large part, is thanks to the contributions of Virginia Mixson Geraty. Geraty lived for over fifty years in the Edisto Island area of South Carolina in the heart of the Low Country. This is the same area where West Africans were brought from Sierra Leone to the Charleston Slave Market and auctioned off to owners of cotton, rice, and indigo plantations.
She first learned the Gullah language from a family servant, Maum Chrish’. By the 1950’s “Ginia” was one of very few people in the country who could fluently speak, read, and write this unique, English-based Creole language. She fiercely defended the language at a time when Gullah speech was ridiculed as "ignorant" and "backward," urging that white teachers be trained in Gullah to better serve the local student populations.
During her 89 years, she created a Gullah/English dictionary, translated the Gospel according to St. Luke, translated Dubois Heyward’s “Porgy,” and authored a number of other books in the Gullah language. She also provided dialect coaching and consultation to the BBC (“The Story of English”), was a librarian with the Charleston County District schools for twenty years, and became an adjunct professor of Gullah at the College of Charleston, where she received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the college in 1995.
Gullah Language Tidbits
Heyward, DuBose. Porgy: A Gullah Version. Trans. Virginia Mixson Geraty. Gibbs Smith, 1990.
Jones, Jr., Charles Colcock. Gullah Folktales from the Georgia Coast. University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Opala, Joseph A. "The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection." Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, Yale University. https://glc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Gullah%20Language.pdf.
The artifact above is from a protest that occurred on May 31st in Boston, Massachusetts. Carrie Mays (pictured in the artifact) is a youth activist and a sophomore at UMass Boston. She “has facilitated community events such as dialogues about racism and spoken at national conferences. Change, she said, needs to begin when we uplift the voices of young people of color” (Laucharoen). Mays helped spread awareness of the protest occurring in Boston by creating a video to tell people that it would be a powerful movement as well as peaceful: “The march began at Nubian Square and drew together what Mays called a rainbow of people, individuals of different races chanting together in solidarity” (Laucharoen). Mays helped start this protest in the fight for George Floyd. George Floyd was an African-American man who was killed during an arrest after a store clerk alleged he had passed a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis. Derek Chauvin, one of four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd's neck for a period initially reported to be 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd continually repeated, “I can’t breathe,” however the officers there paid no attention and continued to kneel on his neck, which eventually killed him. This is where the quote “I can’t breathe” came from.
Starting in May, several protests occurred in Minneapolis, where George Floyd died. In fact, on May 5, 2020, Floyd died, and just one day after, May 26th, as well as May 27th, protests had spread from Minneapolis all the way around the country. Soon after it spread to different countries as well. This includes: “In Australia, there were major protests in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane that focused on the treatment of indigenous Australians. There were also demonstrations in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. In Bristol, protesters tore down the statue of a 17th century slave trader and threw it into the harbor” (“George Floyd Death: US Protests Timeline”). Every state in the United States took part in these protests.
I think that this artifact is a great example because it symbolizes what everyone was thinking. People and communities were able to take part in something that will forever go into history. It is unfortunate that people do not realize that discrimination, racism, and police brutality had occurred long before this. They at least may have not realized that it was so relevant. I think by bringing light to the situation that this has happened in the past goes to prove that it is part of cultural heritage because the impact from history continues until present day. So many more individuals who were not educated on the topic of police brutality as well as racism have been taught and now have a better understanding of it.
I chose this artifact specifically because it brings a back story as well as present-day issues up front. I mainly wanted to talk about George Floyd, however this picture not only represents him but his family and a new world understanding by others. This tragic event had a big impact on his family as well as the world. You can see Carrie Mays hold up a sign that says “Daddy Changed the World,” which was said by Gianna Floyd. Gianna is George Floyd's 6-year-old daughter.
I think that our generation has helped tremendously to bring awareness to this situation mainly because we have seen it happen and grew up talking and learning a lot about it in school. However, even though we have learned so much in school there is still so much information that we missed. Especially being someone who is white, I did not grow up experiencing racism and discrimination. I did not grow up having to be afraid of cops or having to be worried that someone would come up to me and discriminate against me just because of my skin color. I am happy to see that so many other people who are white as well, or anyone who simply just has not dealt with this horrible situation, have started to bring their attention to it all. Our generation wants to make a difference and by using social media to spread the word, and to tell when protests were, or just fight back and stand up to racists, we now have a whole new understanding of what minority races go through every day. Now, newer and younger generations are able to grow up with the Black Lives Matter movement, which will hopefully lead them to change the world in a better way for minorities that unfortunately still deal with discrimination, police brutality, and racism.
This tragic event of course brought a lot of attention and controversy, which is why the protests and backlash has been so intense within 2020 and even in 2021. As this topic of Black Lives Matter occurred around the world, and was brought attention to myself and others, I had several questions. The questions that were raised were not technically ones that I would ask anyone. They are more of ones that I let myself think about because it is not common sense that anyone would be able to answer on the spot. I always want to know: why have we as a country and people in general let this discrimination of other races get to this point? Why did we let this happen in the first place? I always ask myself why anyone would see other people as different just because of their skin color, and why do people think its okay to be racist? What makes Black people and minorities not like white people? We are all the same on the inside, and I think that 2020 was not only a year of disasters, but also a year where people became more educated and willing to stand up for what is right when it comes to these topics.
“George Floyd Death: US Protests Timeline.” BBC News, 4 June 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52921418.
Laucharoen, Shira. “Youth Organizers Experiences Tear Gas, Solidarity on Front Lines of Protest.” Dig Bos, 11 June 2020, https://digboston.com/youth-organizers-experience-tear-gas-solidarity-on-front-lines-of-protests/.
The artifact above was taken by a local photographer, Dan Holmes. This photo was taken in Hopedale, Massachusetts, and shows an active protest that took place for the Black Lives Matter movement. This picture shows Jackson Tahmoush, a resident of Hopedale, kneeling on the ground along with several other people of the community and surrounding towns.
Back on May 5, 2020, George Floyd died. This tragic event inspired protests all over Minneapolis and also spread by word and social media to surrounding states, as well as the entire country and other countries. As a matter of fact, “about 15 million to 26 million people in the United States have participated in demonstrations over the death of George Floyd and others in recent weeks," which “would make the recent protests the largest movement in the country’s history” (Buchanan et. al.). George Floyd's death was very controversial, however many people throughout the world had a belief that what had happened was not okay considering the way that the arrest took place as well as how the officers involved reacted. Although a horrible event, May 5th, 2020, changed the world completely.
During this march that took place during June, marchers wore faces masks, held signs and posters, and also yelled out chants for everyone to hear. When the participants got to the field where everyone gathered, everyone “knelt for nine minutes, many with one fist raised, to mark the approximate time an officer had his knee on Floyd’s neck” (Bosma). After this happened, several people took turns speaking while being in the center of everyone for over an hour. The people who spoke decided to talk about their reactions, opinions, and even, for some, their daily struggles with racism and discrimination. This whole protest all started by Tahmoush posting on social media, which eventually turned into hundreds of people around the area taking a strong march throughout the town of Hopedale to show our solidarity with the movement and protest of the tragic event that took place just recently before. As “Jackson Tahmoush told the assembled crowd, shouting to be heard by those in the back, several yards away. ‘We’re all here for the same reason…it’s not politics. It's human rights” (Bosma). The reason I chose this specific quotation from the article discussing the Hopedale protest is because it made me really focus on the matter that all the controversy that was going on was becoming complete BS to me. I had heard so many people, specifically the older generation, talk about how this was all politics, and that George's death was all for politics, considering the election was just a few months around the corner. It is sad to think that people think that way and do not simply feel as if it happened because of bad cops and racism combined.
The main reason why I decided to include this specific artifact was because I was there at this exact protest. Being from Milford, just one town away from Hopedale, I have grown up with a lot of diversity around me. When I heard what happened and the news about the Black Lives Matter movement and the death of George Floyd by police brutality, it really angered me. I do not want to keep continuing living in a world where racism is shown and projected every day. As a white teenager, it is hard to relate to those that have gone through discrimination because of their race because I have not. I chose to go to this protest because Black lives matter to me, and I wanted to bring attention to the fact that human rights should be given to everyone. No one is different on the inside just because of the color of their skin, nor should they be treated differently because of how they look compared to someone of a different race. I wanted to connect my experience, and I think by choosing this artifact I was able to do that. I was able to show what happened throughout one of my own communities and allow others to get a feeling of how different towns handled the riots, protests, and overall backlash of George Floyd's death. Thankfully, the protest here in Hopedale that I went to was peaceful unlike other places in the United States, where things became violent.
One major thing that connects to my exhibition is that cultural heritage was created throughout the protest. This artifact shows several people kneeling for a movement that had stricken many throughout the world. What people do not see is that this movement happened with just a touch of a button on social media. One post was made about it, and the next thing you know it was given huge attention across the entire Hopedale community as well as the surrounding towns. So many people heard about it because of people from all generations sharing the post and details of the march. This is showing cultural heritage because it's allowing for both the past and present to come together. The past is all of the discrimination, racism, and police brutality that has happened throughout history. Because of the history of all these, many people became fed up with it and wanted to fix the problem and try to make a change in the world. Thankfully, because of technology and social media, this was able to happen. If there was no social media or anyone who had cared, then George Floyd's death would not have been as broadcasted. I believe that all these protests that happened made a huge change throughout the world when it comes to racism and police brutality. Hopefully, the world continues to see this issue as a problem every day and not just a trend, because Black lives will always matter.
Bosma, Alison. “Show of solidarity.” Milford Daily News, Milford Daily https://www.milforddailynews.com/story/news/local/2020/06/04/hundreds-march-for-justice-in-hopedale/42437473/
Buchanan, Larry, et. al. “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History.” The New York Times, 3 July 2020, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html.
As almost everyone is aware from recent and past events during the last year and this present year of 2021, the Black Lives Matter movement has swept all across the nation. It started off in just Minneapolis, Minnesota, and before we knew it, the movement had spread all over the to different states and countries within just a few weeks. However, as much as the movement has done its job at creating a continuing change in the world, there have been a few events that had taken place based off of getting justice and standing up for what is right.
In the artifact that is above, I chose a picture of a statue of Christopher Columbus. However, you would not know it was him because his stone head was broken off by civilians throughout the community of Boston, MA. This action did not happen in just one state: “protesters in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Virginia have targeted statues of Christopher Columbus, damaging or pulling down three in a matter of days” (Machemer). This specific incident took place in the “North End’s waterfront around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday” (Dwyer).
Some people may ask: why was the statue of Christopher Columbus taken down? Well, my answer to that is because, to several people out there in the world, Christopher Columbus is considered a “representative of slavery or colonial oppression” (Dwyer), causing people to want to tear down the statues. With the Black Lives Matter movement going on, the toppling of these statues was seen as a move to make a change in the world to lead in the correction of a figure who was taught to generations that he was good for our country. People wanted to prove a point that Christopher Columbus actually was not. In the United States school system, it is taught to children that Columbus discovered America, however there are some facts that were left out of the lesson that people now want to bring attention to. Charlie Duffield stated that “the Italian explorer is responsible for the genocide and exploitation of native peoples in the Americas," as well as that Christopher Columbus “was a murderer of indigenous people, mainstreaming the genocidal culture against indigenous people." A reaction to this was hatred and disrespect from communities of all kinds, including those who are Indigenous. As a result, from this research and new understanding that Christopher Columbus was racist and more than just a figure of history who “discovered America,” Columbus Day which is typically celebrated on the second Monday of October each year, is now being called by some people “Indigenous Day.” I support this decision in calling it Indigenous Day because why would I want to celebrate someone who was cruel and racist?
I specifically chose this picture to use as my artifact simply because I think it brings a good closing to my exhibition theme. I chose Black Lives Matter because it is an important movement to me, and I have learned so much about it, and the reasons behind the movement. My knowledge has grown immensely on this topic. The Black Lives Matter movement has been broadcasted by many around the world, and the situation of the statues being torn down, I think, has been an eye-opening ordeal to many people. I had not known about Columbus and his racist past and what he had done to Indigenous people. I think that bringing attention to who he was and tearing down his head off the statue will help to publicize this new idea of him.
Black Lives Matter includes people of all types of races that support the movement. The whole point of this movement is to bring an awareness and change to how people of color and of other races are treated. The only way things will change is by communities making that change themselves. Being silent is not an option when it comes to broadcasting a movement. By tearing off Christopher Columbus’s head, people will want to know why and learn what he did. Standing up to racist people is a big part of the movement, so if that means making a change to previous history landmarks that are honoring racism, then so be it.
As mentioned before, I do not care to support a holiday that honors someone who was racist. This opinion, I am sure, can cause a lot of backlash from the public, especially from older white generations. This is a topic I want to touch on because I think bringing attention to it can teach a lot of people who do not have the knowledge that others do. As someone who is white, I did not know anything about Columbus, other than that he had “discovered America.” Why would I know anything else about him, especially if that is all we were taught about as kids in school? Someone who is Indigenous though may know more about it because Columbus targeted their race and culture. The main point I am trying to make is that I have noticed that people do not pay attention or care about an issue until it really affects them or someone they love.
Although I grew up where there was a decent amount of diversity, I had not been close to anyone who went through discrimination or racism, so to me as a younger kid it was as if it did not exist. After growing up and meeting new people and befriending people of all races and living through 2020 with the protests and Black Lives Matter movement, I have been made more aware of it. I think that school systems should start teaching more about racism and discrimination when it comes to the past because what is happening in the present day right now is just as important as what happened in the past and was caused by it. By not teaching new generations about racism and racist figures, it goes against support of Black Lives Matter. The whole movement is trying to bring attention to the subject of police brutality, discrimination, and racism against people of the African-American race, and I think that by teaching all kids about it, no matter what their race is, then they will grow up to know what is right and what is wrong. This goes especially when it comes to racism and discrimination. Kids will be able to point it out and hopefully stand up to wrongful acts.
Duffield, Charlie. “Here's Why Statues of Christopher Columbus Are Being Pulled Down.” Inews, 12 July 2020, https://inews.co.uk/news/christopher-columbus-racist-statues-pulled-down-us-prorests-explorer-443647.
Dwyer, Dialynn. “Head Removed from Christopher Columbus Statue in Boston.” Boston.com, 10 June 2020, https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/06/10/christopher-columbus-statue-beheaded-boston.
Machemer, Theresa. “Christopher Columbus Statues Beheaded, Pulled Down Across America.” Smithsonian Magazine, 12 June 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/christopher-columbus-statues-beheaded-torn-down-180975079/.
Another great story from after the bombing was Carlos Arredondo. Many people may know him as the cowboy hat man from a photo of him helping someone taken right after the bombs went off. Arredondo ran in and helped the injured like the man he helped in the photo. He was seen assisting to push a man with both legs blown off in the blast in a wheelchair away from everything to get help. This act of kindness is unlike anything you can do for a person. The man injured was completely unable to move and had to rely on someone to bring him to help, and Arredondo was that person. Arredondo had already lost two sons, one to war and one to suicide; he knew he could not stand back and watch. According to an article, “he saw the frightened eyes of Jeff Bauman, a young man whose legs had been blown off below the knees. Where once were shins, ankles and feet, now there were only protruding bones. It was a ghastly sight” (Mayo). Carlos then made a tourniquet from a piece of a sweater on one leg as another person does the other leg. Carlos didn’t even know Bauman's name nor did he know the other person who was helping save him. One thing they did have in common was they knew what needed to be done to help people and that showed a sense of unity in the Boston community. The unity of people in Boston right after the bombings was a beautiful sight because we saw that many are willing to help each other out that much.
Unity is what keeps a community together. Without unity a community would be separated and the ability to work together doesn’t exist. I believe that after the bombings all of Boston was joined as a whole. All needed physical and emotional help, and many did whatever they could to provide it. After the bombings we saw many acts of kindness from the community and visitors to Boston. It didn’t matter what kind of person they were, where they came from, because all had the same idea to help the injured. That is what united Boston, the sense of heroic instinct and the thought to help anyone that needed it.
Colbert, Annie. “10 Touching Acts of Kindness at the Boston Marathon.” Mashable, 16 Apr. 2013, mashable.com/2013/04/16/boston-marathon-acts-of-kindness/.
Mayo, Michael. “Fame In A Flash: The Carlos Arredondo Story.” South Florida Sun Sentinel, 15 Apr. 2013, interactive.sun-sentinel.com/bostoncarlos/.