WORDS & IMAGES . . . Hattie Mae's Harvest by Lori D. Johnson

 Sometimes mere words aren't enough.  After I finished writing "Hattie Mae's Harvest" an essay that appears in the most recent issue of Midnight and Indigo, I was inspired to create an accompanying collage.  It's been years since I've felt inspired to create something that falls within the realm of the fine arts.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm kind of rusty, but the feeling that I got while I was in the throes of putting it together was nothing short of WONDERFUL.  

The following is a snippet from the essay . . . 

An old black and white photograph of seven smiling Black women is one of my favorites.  I discovered it in 2017 on a visit with my now ninety-some-year-old Aunt Rubylene.  I don't know who took the picture; what year it might have been taken, or for what occasion.  Even though my Aunt Rubylene is in the photo, she blames her failing memory for her inability to offer any of the pertinent details.  My aunt has always been gracious and forthcoming with me, so I want to take her at her word.

You can read the rest of the work here . . . HATTIE MAE'S HARVEST.

And if you look closely at the artwork below,  you will notice that a couple of the photos described in the essay are featured in the collage.

Hattie Mae's Harvest

by 

Lori D. Johnson

THE BROOKS AVENUE SCHOOL REUNION (August 28, 2022 / MEMPHIS, TN) & Lori D. Johnson's "Johnson Sub Research"

 

I'm still marveling that my research on the Johnson Sub community in Memphis, TN played a role in making this happen.  Wish I could have been there, but from all reports, the event was a smashing success!  The organizer, George R. Williams, Sr., gave a nice presentation at Riverside Missionary Baptist Church.  The folks at the National Civil Rights Museum were wonderful hosts and treated the Brooks Avenue School crew as honored guests.  According to my parents, the tour of the Rosenwald exhibit, the luncheon and the hospitality were all top-notch.

George R. Williams, Sr.

Brooks Avenue Reunion Organizer

Riverside Missionary Baptist Church

Brooks Avenue School Reunion

August 28, 2022

Brooks Avenue School Reunion

at National Civil Rights Museum

(August 28, 2022)

If you'd like to learn more about Brooks Avenue School and its designation as a Rosenwald School, as well as how a portion of my research on Johnson Sub contributed to the reunion, click on the link below for the Commercial Appeal newspaper feature (dated Aug. 24, 2022) about the event.

"Celebrating The Impact of Rosenwald Schools"

MY CONNECTION TO TWO FREEDMEN SETTLEMENTS . . . by Lori D. Johnson

                                

                                       

       Calhoun County, MS

 

Have you ever heard of Freedom colonies, Freedmen settlements or Freedmen towns?  Probably not, huh? 

Freedom colonies and freedmen settlements/towns were the all Black communities established by the formerly

enslaved after the Civil War.  Apparently, I hold the honor of being a descendant of two such communities--

one on my mother’s side of the family and another on my dad’s.  

The one created by my mother’s side of the family was located in Calhoun County, MS near the town of

Paris (not far from Water Valley MS where my mother and her folks were born).  The community was

founded by a former slave (name unknown)  who’d been allowed to work for pay during his

enslavement.  After Emancipation, he purchased land in the area and from it grew a vibrant community. 

They established a school (Bryant School) and a church (Mt. Pleasant Church).  They had a cotton gin,

a blacksmith shop, a grist mill (a mill that grinds grain into flour) and they raised sheep from which

they spun wool and made clothing.  Some of their descendants (Hawkins, Pearson, Reese, Shipp & Steen) erected a marker near what once was the entrance of the church’s cemetery.  (See photo above) Sadly, not that long ago, that marker “mysteriously” disappeared.

JOHNSON CHAPEL, CME

Memphis, TN

The Freedmen settlement established by my dad’s side of the family was founded in 1903 by my great-great

grandfather, Prince Johnson who purchased 48 acres of land in Shelby County, TN (in the Peter Mitchell

Subdivision of Memphis) and resold individual lots to the formerly enslaved and their offspring.  The

residents of Johnson Sub formed a community that thrived well into the 1990s.  For me, Prince Johnson, the

man my grandmother called “The Mayor” of Johnson Sub’s 48 acres is a figure shrouded in mystery. In spite

of my research, I still don’t really know who he was or what he truly had in mind for Johnson Sub.  Given

Prince’s affiliation with The Knights and Daughters of Tabor, I suspect he may have had a self-sufficient

community like Mound Bayou, MS in mind. 

Even though today Mound Bayou is considered impoverished by many, it was once prosperous and even

described by Theodore Roosevelt as “the jewel of the Delta.”  Mound Bayou was a freedman settlement

founded in 1887 and at one point had dozens of Black businesses, 3 schools, 6 churches, a bank, a

Carnegie Library, and even a hospital.  

Nothing of that magnitude ever materialized in Johnson Sub, which for years was basically a farming

community and residential area. But the Sub was full of talented folks and crafts people, like brick masons

and carpenters, some of whom built or helped build many of the homes in and outside of the area.  In the

1920s, an uncle who lived in the Sub was instrumental in raising funds for a Rosenwald school,  Brooks

Avenue School (grades 1-8) which for decades educated Black children who lived in the Sub and

surrounding area. Several family members and residents with Johnson Sub ties taught at Brooks Avenue.

Johnson Sub also was once home to a church (Johnson Chapel CME) and in later years a small general

store (owned and run by my Aunt Vina & Uncle Fugerson) and a chartered civics organization (TheJohnson Subdivision Civics Club).

Not only is it sorta, kinda ironic that I descend from not one, but two Freedman settlements.  But even more

ironic, perhaps, is that my mother and father first met as children and while my mother was in Johnson Sub visiting her relatives. As it turns out, my mother’s relatives were Hawkins (yes, originally part of that freedmen community in Calhoun County, MS) who’d relocated from MS to TN only to settle in another freedmen settlement-- Johnson Sub.  

Just one of the many odd and interconnecting tidbits I’ve discovered in my research of my family’s history.  

SN: If you want to know more about Freedom colonies and Freedmen settlements, check out THE

BLACK TOWNS (1979) by Norman L. Crockett or FREEDOM COLONIES: Independent Black

Texans in the Time of Jim Crow (2005/2010) by Thad Sitton.   If you want to know more about

that Freedmen community in Calhoun County, MS, check out the book BLACK HERITAGE SITES: The South (1996) by Nancy C. Curtis, Ph.D. If you want to know more about Johnson Sub, you need to pray or keep your fingers crossed that I find a publisher for my manuscript. 😏I’ll keep you posted. 

 

Book Notes: THAT LONELY SPELL by FRANCES PARK

 The following is an excerpt from a FB post I shared not too long ago. 

For me, reading THAT LONELY SPELL (by Frances Park) was like that point in a phone conversation with an old friend when the two of you stop laughing and dishing the dirt long enough to get quiet and venture into deeper territory.  I even found myself mentally renaming the book THOSE QUIET MOMENTS. ‘Cause really, I can see and hear so many of those essays as conversations, if not on the phone then, perhaps, late at night on a friend or relative’s deck or patio as the once hot grill is cooling and everyone else has gone inside and it’s just the two of you, swatting mosquitoes, listening to the cicadas, and sipping on a cold or chilled glass of something--wine or maybe iced tea.  So you’re sitting there right, when out of nowhere, comes a story, a retelling of an incident or a revelation that ripples through the quiet of the moment, the still of the night--the type which returns to haunt you, sometimes years later and always when you least expect it. 

But before I veer too deep into ramble mode, allow me to share a few specifics with regards to what I enjoyed about the book.  For one, I enjoyed the fact that each essay opened with a photo.  I find images and photos anchoring.  They add texture and give me a better feel for the subject matter and/or the people being discussed.  I liked the fact that most of the essays were short and to the point ‘cause let’s be honest, my attention span ain’t what it used to be.  I appreciated how Parks interlaced her experiences as a Korean American and the daughter of immigrants throughout the work which is described on the back cover as “an elegy to Park’s father, who died when the author was in her early 20s.”  

The essays I enjoyed the most included the following:  “Kiss-Kiss-Kissuni” (a dive into Park’s relationship with her grandparent’s Korean housekeeper that ends with a heavy, unexpected twist); “That Lonely Spell” (a tender tribute to life’s highs and lows); “Finding West Virginia” (a look at unfulfilled longing) and “Hey Judy” (an abrupt end to a childhood friendship that leaves lingering questions).  

There were a number of essays in the collection that moved me in some way, but probably none more than “Hey Judy.”  Having spent a large portion of my youth moving from one air base to another due to my dad’s career in the Air Force, I’ve had several experiences like the one Parks describes in “Hey Judy.”  Moments in time where you either bond or regularly interact with someone only to have them disappear and either leave you wondering whatever happened to them and/or  being stunned by what you later learn of their fate.  Over the course of my life, I’ve also known more than a few seemingly troubled souls, like Judy.  When I shared the details of “Hey Judy” with my husband, his response was, “OMG! I can totally see that as a movie.” Now, for the record, Al has never responded in such an enthusiastic manner to any of my novels, short stories or essays so suffice to say, I was a bit taken aback, lol.  

In all seriousness, I found THAT LONELY SPELL thoroughly engaging and I applaud Frances Park for owning the courage to share so many emotionally-moving chapters of her life.