This week, the Black/Land Project will be conducting interviews and writing in Macon County, Alabama.
Macon County is home to many black land stories: enslaved African-Americans brought to clear and settle colonial Alabama, and their freedmen descendants (of which this writer is one); the HBCU Tuskegee University; and the black churches where people were rounded up for the infamous U.S. Public Health Syphilis study. Those stories exist at a crossroads, intersecting with homeland of the Mvskokie (Muscogee) Creek peoples. A classic novel of the Harlem Renaissance, Ollie Miss, is set in rural Macon County, where the Black/Land Project will be working.
We will be the guests of The Ridge, a Macon County Archaeology Project. The Ridge literally unearths the long and layered history of indigenous people, colonial planters and traders, and African-American people who have lived on this land. Tucked into the tiny hamlet of Warrior Stand, they are documenting the complex history of this section of the Black Belt south. We are so very grateful to Shari Williams and The Ridge for hosting our Macon County work.
