Hannah Drake - Go Back and Tell

 

In 2016, I had the opportunity to travel to Senegal with a group of performing artists called Roots and Wings. There were about 10 of us, and my daughter had an opportunity to join us on this trip. It was the first time that either of us were leaving the United States. 

 

The week that we were leaving, [with a slightly sobbing voice] I logged onto Facebook and I remember watching Philando Castile being murdered by the police in the passenger seat of his girlfriend's car. And his girlfriend was streaming it live on Facebook. He had on a white T-shirt. I remember watching the blood start to pool across his shirt. His girlfriend was screaming, "I know you just didn’t kill him." And her daughter was in the backseat and she was saying, "Mommy, it’s going to be okay." And the day before that, Alton Sterling was shot in the chest by the police. And someone had recorded it and put the video on Facebook. So, I also watched Alton Sterling be murdered on Facebook. I was so ready to get out of here. 

 

I remember boarding the plane. And admittedly, I felt a little bit guilty, because I was leaving at a time, as a writer and as a blogger, where everybody was asking me, "Hannah, what do you think about this?" What is there left to say? I didn’t have any stories. I didn’t have anything to tell them that would make it better. I just knew that I had to get out of here. I just needed a minute to breathe. 

 

And the minute that I stepped foot into Senegal, I felt like I was home. I felt like finally there was a place in this world where I belonged. My friend and I, who joined me on the trip, Cynthia, we went to buy earrings. I remember we were in the shop holding the earrings in such a way that the shop owner wouldn’t think that we were trying to steal them. When we went to pay for them, we realized that the shop owner was outside of the shop. She wasn’t even paying attention to us. It finally dawned on us, here in Senegal, being Black isn’t a crime. And just trying to shop while Black, we weren’t criminals. It was like the world finally opened up to me and said, "Hannah, we’ve been waiting for you." 

 

I was determined to enjoy every minute of being in Senegal, but I knew there would be one time, one visit that would be challenging for me. And it was when we were taking a trip to Gorée Island. And at Gorée Island is The Door of No Return, and it's the last point where enslaved Black people were brought before they were put on slave ships. I remember we had to take a boat to get to Gorée Island. You could see The Door of No Return from the boat. It was so quiet and the mood was somber on the boat. 

 

We stepped off and went inside. They call it the House of Slaves. It's just a two-story stone building. And in this building, they have rooms for men, women, young girls, infants, and a room for those that would resist. I went inside of the room for women, and my daughter went in the room for young women. I was staring out of the window in this room. When I say window, mind you, it's just two inches wide. I heard my daughter start to weep. She was crying. This cry I had never heard come out of her. It filled up the space of this room with echoes. 

 

I started to walk to The Door of No Return. I stood in the door and looked out at the ocean, and I could hear my daughter crying in the background. I tried to imagine how it would feel in that time to know that I was getting on a ship and coming somewhere that I didn't know and I would have to leave my daughter behind. I never got that sound out of my mind and I never forgot how it felt to stand in The Door of No Return, but I also never forgot how I felt just to be free for a minute. 

 

When we came back to America, I was so incredibly depressed. I knew that I was back to being the other person, and back to being racially profiled, and back to being concerned about driving and back to my skin feeling so heavy. I remember I called my mom and I told her, we were there for two weeks. I had 20,160 minutes of all my life just to be free. We started talking about slavery and the South. And so, nonchalantly, my mom says, “Well, Hannah, you know I used to pick cotton.” 

 

I couldn't believe that my mother had said this. And I said, “What did you say?” And she said, “When I was a little girl, I used to pick cotton.” And I said, “Well, how long did you do this for?” And she said, “For three years, from the time that I was 9 until I was 12.” And I said, “Well, tell me about it.” And she said, “My grandmother would pick me, and my brothers and sisters up and bring us to the cotton field, and we would pick cotton for 80 cents a day.” 

 

I couldn't imagine that my mother had to do that. And I said, “Well, what happened in the fields? Tell me about it.” She said, “I wouldn't repeat the names that they called me in those fields.” My mother is 70 years old. And I said, “Well, can you tell me about your grandmother? What was her name?” She said, “I don't remember. We used to just call her Mamie.” And I said, “Can you remember anybody beyond your grandmother?” And she said, “No.” It was like the history of who I was was lost in that cotton field. I knew I had to see them. It was calling me. 

 

As life would have it, with my job, they said, “Hannah, you're going to do some work in Natchez, Mississippi.” And admittedly, as a Black woman in America, I didn’t want to go to Mississippi, but I knew something inside of me had to go to Mississippi. I was there to do some work with a young group of girls called Girls and Pearls, teaching them art and history and heritage. I wanted to take my daughter with me. They connected me with a tour guide. I called him. And he said, “Hannah, when you fly into Baton Rouge and drive to Natchez, do not go through Jackson, Mississippi, because I cannot guarantee your safety.” 

 

When me and my daughter got in the car and started driving, we were so afraid. As we drove, it was like you were going back in time. We could see plantation homes and cotton as far as your eyes could see, and the Confederate flag waving everywhere. When we made it to our destination, I knew I have to see this. I have to bear witness to this. So, we started. 

 

My daughter and I started to tour the plantation homes. When I say homes, this is not like a two-bedroom home here. They are mansions. Sprawling mansions and you still have to pay to get into them. And I thought, at this point, can I get in for free? I mean, at least a discount. [laughs] We started touring them. I remember my daughter, and once started touching everything, and I was looking at her, and they still had the fine China and the bedding and solid gold chandeliers. She was touching everything in the rooms. And I said, “Why are you doing that?” I thought for sure they're going to put us out of here. And she said, “I wanted to touch things that I knew slaves wouldn't be able to touch.” 

 

We continued to visit other plantation homes, and in one, everything started to look the same. So, I asked one of the tour guides, “Well, take me to the slave quarter. Show me that. I get that these homes are beautiful, but that is not where I would have been. Take me where my people would have been.” And she said, "Oh, we've covered those up, we've turned those into offices." And just like that, once again, the history of who I am was gone. 

 

I went to another plantation home. There was a Black tour guide, and he showed me through the home. We stood in the dining room, and it was huge with the original China. There had a casserole dish, and the knob on the casserole dish was shaped into a cotton ball and it was solid gold. And above this table was this huge fan, and it had a string connected to it. It pulled off to the side of the corner. He told me that a little child, often a girl, would have to stand in the corner and pull the string, so the fan would wave and keep flies off of the food. 

 

I was so heartbroken, because I couldn't believe that somebody was enslaved to keep flies off food. And he told me, "Don't weep for her, because she has a very important job. When people eat, they talk. And her job is to stand in that corner and listen to everything that is being said at this table and go back and tell her mother." I remembered that to go back and to tell. 

 

And finally, I knew it was time for me to go to the cotton fields. I went to Frogmore Plantation. They have 1,800 acres of cotton. They showed me the bags that slaves had to put cotton in. I was thinking in my mind of a small bag. But when they showed me the bag, it's six feet long and three feet wide. I asked her, "Well, how much cotton can fit in this bag?" And she said, "70 pounds." And slaves were required to pick 200 to 300 hundred pounds a day. 

 

I went out in the cotton field, and I started picking cotton. It was hot. I tried to get the seeds out of the cotton, and it was difficult. I thought about my mother in those cotton fields, and I thought about standing in The Door of No Return. I remember the curator of The Door of No Return said to us, "Welcome back home. You made it. Everybody didn't get a chance to come back home." 

 

I started running my hands over the cotton, and I thought about my life and my mother's grandmother, whose name I don't even know. And I thought about all the little slave girls named Hannah. And I thought about all the stories that were lost in the cotton fields. And I remember what the tour guide told me, that I was like that little Black girl in the corner, waving the fan, and my job was to go back and tell the stories. Thank you.