Going Back to the Plantation
This essay is a collaboration between Oldster and Road Scholar, the not-for-profit world leader in educational travel for older adults. You are invited to take a special travel questionnaire the team at Road Scholar put together, so that they can learn more about your travel habits and interests. Your responses will inform their future educational travel offerings for older adults. And we’ll report back on the findings in a later post.
Recently, an email appeared in my inbox from my niece Melanie, our family historian. She wrote:
Dear Auntie,
When you travel along the Civil Rights Trail in Alabama next month, will you be visiting our ancestral homeland in Monroeville? If so, would you please take a picture of the plantation where our ancestors were enslaved and send it to me?
***
The last time I was in Monroeville, Alabama, I was 9 years old, visiting family with my mother. It was 1961, and Jim Crow was alive and well. I don’t remember many details of that trip, but I do remember how startling it was to learn about and experience America’s apartheid system firsthand. When I saw my first set of water fountains with signs that said “White” and “Colored,” I got excited because I thought “Colored” meant that the water in that fountain would be rainbow colored. Much to my dismay, it was a grungy old metal fountain with warm water.
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Now, sixty-three years later, I found myself presented with the opportunity to return to Alabama to follow the Civil Rights Trail with Road Scholar. On the Road Scholar program, we would visit such places as the Rosa Parks Museum and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. Meet foot soldiers and activists at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and walk with them across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The trip would be illuminative for me.
But this trip would also allow me to take a personal pilgrimage to Monroeville, my mother’s birthplace, forcing me to look my family’s past square in the eye. With my niece’s request to motivate me, I hoped to find the location of the plantation where my ancestors had been enslaved.
It seemed like a reasonable request, but I had no idea where to start. Luckily, one of the Road Scholar Group Leaders, a Montgomery local, pointed me to their Department of Archives and History, the official repository of archival records for the State of Alabama, to get help unearthing the coordinates for the plantation.
Upon arriving there, I was assigned a research assistant, Roland McDonald, who ushered me to one of their research stations. We sat down in the cozy corner and launched into a barrage of questions about my family history. After finishing his inquisition, he switched on his computer, dove in, and quickly started to connect the dots.
This trip would allow me to take a personal pilgrimage to Monroeville, my mother’s birthplace, forcing me to look my family’s past square in the eye. With my niece’s request for photos to motivate me, I hoped to find the location of the plantation where my ancestors had been enslaved.
Armed with only my paltry factual offerings, he was able to find Monroe County slave and property tax records that helped him fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Entering in my great grandfather’s name, Jake Parker, he was able to identify the name of his slave owner, Asa Parker, and the list of the 43 slaves he owned. He found Jake’s death certificate, a newspaper ad for the 1926 probate proceeding for the farm that Jake had acquired, and much more. At long last— my family and I would have answers to long-standing legacy questions that sprung up from the Ancestry research previously conducted by my niece.
And finally, Roland found the information that launched the search: the location of the plantation where my great-grandfather was born into slavery in 1863. Not only that, but he also created a computerized detailed map to help me find it.
***
I set off the next day on my plantation pilgrimage. After driving from Montgomery to Monroeville, I whipped out the map and programmed my GPS. I discovered it was only six miles away. After repeatedly getting lost, an hour later, I finally found the desolate dirt road that would take me to the plantation site.
For the twenty minutes it took me to drive from there, I saw no houses, stores, people, animals, or signs until finally, finally, finally, I spotted an intersection with street signs that Roland had told me to look for: “Walkers Creek at Monroe Station.”
There was no indication that a plantation had once stood on this spot. It was only open fields.
I got out of the car, walked to the edge of the land, and peered over the vast landscape. In preparation for this trip, I had read My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem, a book designed to help African Americans prepare for heritage travel. But still, I was not prepared for the harsh reality of standing on the soil where my direct ancestors had been enslaved. It was much heavier than I was prepared for. I fell to my knees and recited the names of all my known ancestors.
“Anna, Bessie, Horace, Alice, Grady, Ruth…”
I even invoked the names of my other two Virginian great-grandfathers (from the other side of my family), who fought in the Civil War and put their lives on the line to end the horrors of slavery. (I come from a “goodly” heritage.)
I poured libations in appreciation for the endurance, fortitude, resilience, courage, and strength of my ancestors in the face of unimaginable hardship that paved the road to my life and that of my relatives.
In closing and in honor of my forbearers, I recommitted myself to my forty-year healing journey of trying to remove the vestiges of slavery and generational trauma from my mind, body, and soul.
I was tempted to walk further onto the land to see if I could find any remnants, but I couldn’t muster the courage. I was in the midst of galloping fear. Standing there, stewing in a constellation of emotions, I felt like I was in a grim episode of the Twilight Zone. There I was, a Black woman, alone in middle-of-nowhere Alabama. No other vehicles or pedestrians had passed on the roads during my entire visit to the plantation site. I was truly isolated. It was time to go.
To complete my ritual, I pulled out my phone, took some photos and videos, then dragged myself back to the car to launch my haunted journey back to “civilization.”
Driving back, the feeling of gratitude managed to navigate its way through the morass of emotions I experienced as I savored the idea that I had not only accomplished the goal my niece set for me, but had garnered vital information that will be useful to the family members seeking to connect with our heritage, understand our family history, and confront the legacy of slavery.
Video footage from Elaine Lee’s visit:
***
On my second day in Monroeville, after searching six Black graveyards, I finally found the headstone for my great-grandfather, Jake Parker (1863–1926), placed flowers on his grave, and blessed his celestial journey.
***
As I step into my role as a family elder, it is critical that I ensure our ancestors will not be forgotten under dirt, branches, and rubble of the former plantation and that our family history and legacy will not be erased.
My journey to Monroeville was a precious and powerful one.
And so, a call to my fellow African Americans: it is time to go back to the plantation if and when you can— to honor our ancestors, reaffirm your roots, and anchor yourself for the journey ahead. Not to sit with discomfort for its own sake, but as a necessary step toward fortification.
I edified myself with a pilgrimage and rituals, but I know they are not enough. They must be followed by action. I am ready.
“I am the dream and the hope of the slave.” — Maya Angelou
Elaine Lee, Esq., is a globetrotter and award-winning travel journalist. She has visited 70 countries and completed two solo trips around the world. She is the editor of the pioneering travel book Go Girl: The Black Woman’s Book of Travel and Adventure and its sequel Go Girl 2. To learn more about her, visit her website www.ugogurl.com.
This essay is a collaboration between Oldster and Road Scholar, the not-for-profit world leader in educational travel for older adults. You are invited to take a special travel questionnaire the team at Road Scholar put together, so that they can learn more about your travel habits and interests. Your responses will inform their future educational travel offerings for older adults. And we’ll report back on the findings in a later post.
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