AN AUTUMNAL DAY OF CONTRASTS

President's House

You can enjoy beautiful walks now almost everywhere.  Cooler air,  leaves crunching underfoot, deep reds and russets and golds.  Nature seems happy to shed and reveal its shapeliness.  Knuckle-head pumpkins, red warty pumpkins, smooth white and traditional orange jack-o-lanterns.  Clusters of mums on doorsteps of homes and shops, shades of purple and pink, red or orange, yellow and white.   And apples of every variety ready for caramel, cinnamon or nutmeg.  Fall is a season of excess.    

I was feeling its bounty yesterday when I was caught up short passing the historic President's House on the campus of Princeton University. Life is full of contrasts, as we know.  So switch gears with me if you will.

In front of the President's House is an iron plaque commemorating sixteen of the enslaved men, women and children who were bought, sold, traded or inherited by the men who lived in the house.  They too lived their seasons in the spot I was standing.  Loved and worked, laughed and mourned in this lovely university town. In the house and on the grounds of the President of the University. It is not something to notice and pass by.

I studied the names.  Caesar and Harry served one President.  Joseph and Sue another, Peg yet another.  Names given them by those who enslaved them, of course.  In 1766 a Jamaican mother would not have named her infant "Sue."  An African woman wasn't given the birth name "Peg" by her family. Possibly the earliest dehumanization taken for granted by the enslaver.  

But there's something more particular that caught my eye. Look at the sign closely. The plaque lists two unnamed women, an unnamed man, three unnamed children and an unnamed 11 or 12-year-old boy.  

This memorial was placed by Princeton University in 2019. Much good has come from the Princeton and Slavery Project, which developed from an undergraduate course in 2013. You can look it up as I did.  

But why in 2019 would these children be listed as unnamed?  A name might be unrecorded; it might be lost to history or unknown; but a person is not unnamed.  The enslaved community was no different than any other. Their mother named these children. The children, the women, the man and the boy were each loved by others who knew their names intimately and called them out, lovingly or in anger; in whispers or in fear. Our imaginations do not fail us here. 

I feel like there is a carelessness in so describing these children and adults.  Perhaps a paucity of feeling.  I wonder if this is another way racism unconsciously affects even those who try to make amends. 

I want to think about this.  I am glad during this bountiful fall of walks and road-trips for this time to think about the injustices of today that are so rooted in the brutalities of yesterday.  To remember our history in a tangible way, by the small gesture of touching the raised cast-in-iron mementos of people enslaved where, by the grace of God (and Abraham Lincoln), all now walk freely.  Simple things remind us how much remains for us to do.

Questions of evil like strings of seaweed rise tangled from the depths.  But we are meant to be aware of these contrasts, to confront the disconnects.  To not pass by but rather do good however we can.        

                                                 Nina Naomi  

  

 

 

 

 

THE REMARKABLE HARRIET JACOBS AND OUR LIVES TODAY

Edenton, North Carolina

We took an outing to Edenton, a picturesque town on the Albemarle Sound just a two and a half hour drive from home, where preserved historic areas are buttressed by reminders of slavery, much as enslaved labor buttressed the coastal economy.   

My husband recently finished Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself.  In the 1820s and 30s, Jacobs (1813-1897) lived hidden in the attic of her grandmother Molly, a freed woman, for nearly 7 years.  Can you imagine? The room was less than head height.  She was waiting for the right time to escape to freedom by way of the Chowan River. 

We went to Edenton to try to feel what life there was like.  It was the kind of trip that acts more like a whipsaw than anything else.  Filled with contradictions like life often is.  For us, a stay in a lovely room at the Inner Banks Inn with morning French Toast or eggs-to-order.  A little kitchen off the living room to make tea and coffee all hours. 

Living Room, Inner Banks Inn

A world apart from the world of Harriet Jacobs. And of those less privileged today.  We're more aware, aren't we, of our privilege at whatever level it lies?  

Just after arriving we walked to the grounds of St. Paul's Episcopal Church where Harriet and her children were baptized.  As my husband was describing to me  the "owner" who made her life unbearable, we spotted his grave: James Norcom, M.D. (1777-1850), who was known throughout his life as  "one of the most distinguished physicians of his time."

And in fact he does seem to have practiced charity to all, all but the enslaved. To Harriet he is a "licentious master" and predator who subjects her (and others) to unrelenting abuse.  Both he and his wife were known among the enslaved for their cruelty and violence.  Harriet chooses confinement--for who knew how long--in the crawl space over her grandmother's home and bakery, to life in the Norcom household.  

The next day we took the Harriet Jacobs' Tour; basically a golf-cart ride with a knowledgeable State guide around the places associated with the writer. Neither of us had heard the term "maritime railroad" but along the North Carolina coast it was a thriving and dangerous route to freedom.  Jacobs dresses as a sailor when she makes her escape North.

To no avail Norcom continues to hunt her with a passion. Here Norcom offers a $100 REWARD for "the apprehension and delivery of my Servant Girl, HARRIET.  She is a light mulatto," he says, "21 years of age, about 5 feet 4 inches high. . . ."  "She speaks easily and fluently," he continues, "and has an agreeable carriage and address."   James wants her back.   In her autobiography she states that she is able to fend him off, no mean feat.  It enrages the man.  The guide tells us that he becomes obsessed with her. Just reading this poster is hurtful. 

Part of the Jacobs' tour includes the African-American Cemetery, mostly unmarked graves. A few weeks ago we also stayed one night in Old Salem, in another historic inn, just an hour and a half from home.  There we saw what is called the Stranger's Graveyard.  Stones of African Americans marked only Adult or Child.

Harriet's life story is remarkable. She unites with her children and once free leads a long and extraordinary life as an activist.  She does more good than Norcom ever dreamed of. 

These trips are moving occasions.  While we were at the Inner Banks Inn the Derek Chauven verdict also came down.  Guilty on all counts.  The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that ex-officer Chauven murdered George Floyd with his knee.  And all because a prescient child filmed the murder with her phone.  We watched promises that change and accountability are coming and hope, despite almost immediate evidence to the contrary, that this may be true. 

We are used to intense times, aren't we?  Pandemic worries, fears of violence, and whatever else we cope with. We are used to the cognitive dissonance, as it's called, of living with tremendous difficulties, and yet having wonderful lives.  I feel like this was a week of paying respects.  But it was also a longed-for week of traveling with my husband, eating food cooked by someone else, and sleeping on sheets I don't have to change.  It was a week at water's edge seeing new sights.  Now at its end I feel transformed, in more ways than one. 

With love and respect for all, Nina Naomi  

1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse, Edenton