More Holy Ground, More Sacred Ground: Day Two of Travel

A certain familiarity exists as we make our way out of the city of Roanoke Rapids, NC to Tillery. Charla knew exactly which roads to take, which turns to take. At every mile of the way, memories came back with their sights, sounds, smells, and pictures.

I remember meeting the Watermelon Man at that store over there.  I was flipped off while driving over there.  We dined over real country cooking over there.  I interviewed one farmer up the road to the right that bears his name. There are many attachments to these stretches of highway.

We exit town on 125, then turn on 903, and then locate the sign that says Tillery to the left. We drive through what was the Tillery Resettlement Community, a product of the New Deal under President Roosevelt in the '30s and '40s.  We pass the highway, "Over the Farm," which means that our friends' homes are down that road to the right and the left. The sarcophagus of the elders who have passed over, Matthew and Florenza Grant, is down this road on the right. On a wall over my desk back at home is a photo engraved on a plaque for "A Man Called Matthew Award," and that same picture is on t-shirts that we have in our sacred collection.

Fields lie fallow.  Others have been plowed and prepped for planting. New houses spring up. Old houses are falling down. Life goes on.  It waits for none of us.  Not even you or me.

We take a quick left turn down a dirt path to the office of Gary Grant.  We embrace. We sit for over an hour, remembering and recalling, and calling us out to do well in the world. Again, a familiar place with familiar smells, and a family face.  This building was once Matthew Grant's casket factory. The front is Gary's office.  We have sat there many times before. We hope to sit there again and again. We are welcomed to the office, the desk, the hall with the photos on the wall, including one of two of our grandsons wearing BFAA shirts.

After another left and then another left, over there on the left is the Community Center, the hub of activities for the African American community of the larger area.  It has been this way for years. Hopefully it'll serve the people for years to come. Immediately to the right is the Curin' House, The Tillery History House, a museum for the area.  In those archives are recordings and transcripts of interviews in which I sat and listened to story after story of Black farmers across the south back in 2005. Sacred recordings in my estimation.

We first met the Open Minded Seniors, and the Concerned Citizens of Tillery, while meeting face to face with the president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association about this time fourteen years ago, or 2005 to be exact. They still meet in the same location. It has that familiar smell, sounds, and feel to it.

We do the usuals, prayers, songs, exercise, and then lunch. The elderly are served at their tables by the younger elderly.  We are all elderly.

Charla and I are inching our way out the back door when Gary insists that we return.  We must say some things.  Gary is not one with whom to trifle. We did.

He introduced us with grace, history, and humor.  Then he gave the mike to me.

Time was drawing to an end, and I did not want to drone over and over for these elderly saints, so I summarized things as succinctly as I could. Our gratitude for the Grant family who took us in, for people like Doris and Cary who accepted us, and some of them whose faces we remember. I shared the dream of the Black farmer documentary. There were many amens and other words of affirmation. These elderly saints know the trials of farming while black. I was humbled by their responses, moved to do well even more than ever. People are watching what we do.  They are awaiting for what Shoun and I will bring to the table from the stories we are hearing.

Tomorrow we return for interviewing and filming.  Shoun will capture the conversations and then he will film "B-roll" footage for the documentary.  We'll have more interviews on Thursday. Then on Friday, we'll all fly home.  Shoun to the Bronx, and Charla and Waymon to Denison.

We live in Denison, Texas.  We leave our hearts in Tillery.