For him to give you his children
Without choice or pleasure
For him to give you his land
Born to hold us captive
Your eyes must have shown your dreams
And he wanted to ground them to dirt
Your walk must have shown your resistance
And he wanted to prune it from your roots
Your mouth must have shown your intellect
And he wanted to till it into submission
I think of that land as an inheritance
Called forward by power and violence
You took that inheritance
Along with your vision
To open its doors
You took that inheritance
Along with your defiance
To provide sovereignty
You took that inheritance
Along with your wisdom
To create edification
What he saw in you was his property
So you used property to instill humanity
I recently learned about Mary Lumpkin, a formerly enslaved woman who took one of the cruelest slave jails nicknamed "devil's half acre' and turned it into a seminary for formerly enslaved people.
The slaveholder who gave her the prison had died, and Mary, who fled to freedom during the civil war never wanted the prison.
Eventually, it would become Virginia University, which remains one of the oldest HBCUs in the country.
You can read more about the difficult, complex, and rich life of Mary Lumpkin here. And if you're like me and want to read even more, you can buy The Devil's Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail here.