Unbinding the tongue and bearing witness.

Inspired by the literary community engagement practices and scholarly analysis of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, and scholarly analysis by Dr. K. Zauditu-Selassie,, Jeong-Eun Rhee, Jesmyn Ward and S.R. Toliver to name a few, which emphasizes the importance of historical context for future enlightenment. I have engaged in creating narrative fiction that not only tells these stories but also allows the women who inspired them to reclaim their narratives. By engaging the tools of traditional Black storytelling, afro-futurism and sisterhood, this project implores one to consider how we move forward in data collection, analysis and representation. Documenting the longstanding tradition among Black women of passing down stories from one generation to the next at the dinner table or on the front stoop, these narratives often encapsulate personal and collective experiences, cultural wisdom, and resilience in the face of adversity.

Historically, these stories were shared in intimate settings like family gatherings, community events, and the infancy of civil and social movements, serving as a vital means of preserving history and strengthening community bonds. This process has helped bridge generational gaps and address the losses incurred through assimilation and displacement, ensuring that valuable traditions and remedies are not lost to time.

For this to be possible we must return to utilizing oral histories.The intricate practice of repetition unbinds the story, allows a freedom and personal interpretation of the wisdom and knowledge that is embedded in the characters and events.

The data collected and review of historical records pertaining to the lived experiences of Black women highlights the rich and vibrant cultural, societal and womanist influence on generations of women preserving their legacies but also reaffirming their place and value in the community in a way that has always existed but is threatened to disappear because the elders are transitioning, social interaction is declining and the impact of gentrification .

“What has guided me to imagine, conceptualize, and carry out this work on my mother’s re-memory as inquiry is y/our m/others who have also left the haunting traces of multiple connections; and who have mysteriously showed up offering their helping hands – or their re-memories – at various points of my writing.”(Jeong-Eun Rhee).

This is how we remember our/selves’collectively.

“They ask me to remember but they want me to remember their memories and I keep on remembering mine.”

- Lucille Clifton

“For all the juke joint women

With peek-a-boo knees and black seems

Grasping at hems in homemade winds

Red lip Sallys

With razor sharp teeth cutting paths for us

For all the women as emissaries

With velvet hands

Caught babies

Kneaded bread

And

Toiled unyielding soil

These divining rods prepared a sacred space for us

For all the Holy women

Leaving prayers in the back of photos in gilded frames

Taming fevered bodies with ancestral psalms from haint blue doorways

Performing miracles so that we would survive

Thank you”

“I was raised by women who spoke in poems and songs, did ring dances and sometimes prayed for rain. They told fanciful tales, burned tobacco and sipped fire water.”