Welcome to AfroCarolina Correspondence, a Sunday newsletter and offspring of my blog, Morning Glory Stories: Black Southern Resistance & History in the Carolinas. My intention with this newsletter is to encourage and contribute to the growing well of AfroCarolina thought, language and expression.
May this newsletter be like Sunday supper at my late great grandma Mozell’s house - beginning with a sizable appetite and a hope for nourishment, and leaving full in more ways than one.
A Word of Thanks:
The title of this newsletter is delightedly gleaned from the brilliant and ongoing work of folklorist, Michelle Lanier. Also a daughter of AfroCarolina, Michelle has gifted the world this language and framework allowing myself and others to connect with our lineages, preserve and build culture, and activate memory with a different level of clarity and depth. She has also generously offered a deeper contextualization of AfroCarolina and blessing of this inaugural issue of AfroCarolina Correspondence below. Thank you Michelle!
*In Michelle's own words:
"Thank you for your witness, Alexis. Yes, I see myself as one who birthed and who is birthed by AfroCarolina. I see AfroCarolina as both a descriptor of us as people and also our ecologies of home, memory, and futurities. I see AfroCarolina as a borderless place with deep yet mobile roots. We cannot be dispossessed of the liquid land of AfroCarolina. We carry it in our mouths even as we clutch the terraqueous truth of it all. I'm gladdened by the news of this newsletter. I look forward to joining you from time to time in these pages. Here, I see you have birthed a brush arbor. Here, I see you have evoked the Mothership, just as George Clinton's Mother did, when she birthed him in Kannapolis.
I also want to offer acknowledgement to my friends Nathalie & Anna for encouraging me to write (even when I didn’t want to lol!) Thank you Nat & Anna!
The form and medium for this newsletter is inspired by Zeba Blay of Carefree Black Girls. I can’t remember when exactly I subscribed to her sunday energy newsletter, but it’s been such a pleasant weekly gift for me, and helped me realize the potential in using newsletters as a container for my writing practice. Thank you Zeba!
Finally, I offer gratitude to my ancestors, those known and unknown. Those who called these lands home and those who didn’t; those who worked long days underneath the hot sun; who prayed and sang in the woods and hush harbors; those who stole themselves away under the cover of darkness; those who saw beauty and made medicine out of rhythms, roots and flowers. Thank you ancestors!
The Invitation
This is an invitation to walk with me along the Tar River, to feast on gullah/geechee red rice and field peas, to sit at the feet of elders as they tell their stories, and to experience the creative offerings of my dope artist friends. My hope is that AfroCarolina Correspondence will be an intimate space of practice and exploration that reflects the richness of Black southern life in the Carolinas. I hope that me, you, and future contributors can be in conversation with each other. So send a note when something resonates with you. Ask the questions that come up and we can be in them together. Please reach out if you’d like to contribute.
I could keep going on about my hopes and dreams for this newsletter, but I’ll save some for future issues. Instead I’ll leave you with a few pictures of my friend Brittney’s exhibit, Mothers & Daguerrotypes: Reflections on Revolutionary Mothering, at the Avery Research Center in Charleston, SC. You can support Brittney’s artist residency program here.
Until next time,
AlexisÂ


