Laquita Tummings, Dearly Beloved

Description:

“I remember reading Beloved when it came out in one sitting. I was fascinated that it was based in part on actual events. Margaret Garner, an escaped slave from Kentucky who fled to the free state of Ohio. But when they attempted to re-capture her, she had killed her two-year-old daughter and was attempting to kill her other children to spare them from being returned to slavery. Margaret Garner made the decision to be free or die. She was tried for destroying a white man's property rather than for the murder of her child. In the press coverage of the time she was thought to be unnatural because of her hatred of being enslaved and how death was preferable. White people who were not enslaved could not understand. Still can't. The gray background is for the slab that Sethe prostituted herself for and still Beloved was all she could get for her efforts. The chains are there because without the enslavement of the Africans, this story would never happen. I grew up picking blackberries with my mother. Later in life, I lived in a house that had blackberries overrunning the backyard. Red is for the blood shed by all enslaved ancestors and for us today.”

Attribution:

Laquita Tummings, California

Date:

2021