I have decided to die in Mississippi. After living around the world, this is my last stand.
I reside in Noxubee County—Macon, the county seat, to be exact. I am a 74-year-old writer and genealogist. I moved to Mississippi in 2018 to research and write a book about my ancestors. They were enslaved at Cliftonville, a community in Bigbee Valley that no longer exists. My location is fortuitous because I can walk to the courthouse. Its records date back to 1833 when the county was founded after the signing of The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, which propelled the Native American “Trail of Tears.”
I am not planning to leave this Earth soon, but one never knows. I am at an age when I think about death a lot. Every day above ground is a blessing.
My circle of life is focused on my great-great-grandmother who was enslaved in Noxubee County. Her name was Bettie Warfe/Gavin. She was transported to Mississippi as a 9-year-old child. She subsequently had 17 children with the nephew of her owner.
I did not grow up in Mississippi and never set foot on Mississippi soil until I was an adult. I came here to walk in Bettie’s footsteps.
When I was growing up in Chicago, many of my schoolmates hailed from the Deep South. Many arrived as passengers on Illinois Central Railroad trains during the Great Migration. From 1910 to 1970, six million Black people moved from the American South to northern, midwestern, and western states seeking work opportunities and fleeing the terror of their home places. There was a straight route from Louisiana to Chicago. It was called “The City of New Orleans.” My grandfather and his brothers worked on that train.
Many of my classmates would depart to spend summers with family in Mississippi. I envied them and wondered why I couldn’t go too. My mother eventually told me it was because of Emmett Till, who was lynched in 1955 when I was four years old.
Emmett was born in Chicago like me. He was 14 years old when accused of offending Carolyn Bryant—a white woman—at her family’s grocery store in Money, Mississippi. Her husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam abducted Emmett. They beat, tortured and killed him and discarded his body with a fan wrapped around his neck into the Tallahatchie River. He was found three days later in an unrecognizable state. At his funeral in Chicago, Emmett’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley insisted that his casket be open for the world to witness what happened to her beloved son.
I was too young to absorb all this, but it certainly had a deep impact on my family.
My first residence in Noxubee was ironic. I lived with friends in an antebellum mansion. The Goodwin-Harrison House was built in 1852 by William Wyche Goodwin. In 1860, he enslaved seven people at Macon and 75 people on his farm in District 2. There is a dilapidated cook house that still exists on the grounds. The greatest irony was that I volunteered to be the cook for my host family and men working on the house. The end goal was to transform this landmark from a symbol of despair into a beacon of hope.
There are a lot of tears in Mississippi.
Mississippi is the poster child for all that is wrong with America. That is what some people think. In many ways, they are right. The historical record is replete with innumerable instances of egregious behavior, particularly against African American people. Nina Simone’s classic anthem, “Mississippi Goddam,” popularized during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, summed it all up.
I won’t recount a long list of grievances, but suffice it to say that slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, voter suppression and rape all feature in my family story.
From 1862 to 1968, 581 people were lynched in Mississippi. One of them was my grandfather’s uncle, Henry Nicholson, sometime around 1910. There is no death certificate or coroner’s report. His body was never found. If the rivers of Mississippi were ever dredged, there would be many bodies that are unaccounted for.
How do I overcome this historical trauma so that I can be a discerning person of integrity who is dedicated to building a better society?
In my work as a family historian, I discovered the wisdom of how to heal historical harm. My discovery began in 2012 when I embarked upon a journey to uncover my past. I partnered with a stranger—a white man who descended from the largest slave trading family in American history. We recounted our adventure in a book, “Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade.”
What I learned is that the process for healing historical harm is to confront the truth of the past, make connections with others, work toward healing and take action.
Years later, I have succeeded greatly in being accepted into my “new” Mississippi homeplace. I serve on boards of community organizations. I attend weddings and funerals. I cook and share food. Friends come help me as I endure daunting health challenges.
My little town of 2,200 people is a beacon of light as America copes with the treacherous times in which we now live. Mississippi has the opportunity to be an example of transformation from “what was” to “what can be.” I pray we will embrace that challenge and make it so.
Let’s turn “Mississippi Goddam” into “Mississippi Hallelujah!”
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