The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Susan Lanford,
San Antonio, TX
p>I grew up in southern Louisiana where racial slurs were normal yet one of my friends in High school lived in N bend and that was normal too. I’m fascinated with how African Americans out smarted the plantation owners using quilts via the Underground Railroad and so my quilt journey is just beginning.
Martha McKinney,
Hector, NY
My Quaker great-great grandfather was a conductor on the Underground Railroad in PA; my Quaker great grandfather fought against slavery in the Civil War; my Quaker forebears refused to buy pretty southern cloth because it was made by enslaved people. Precious stories came down the generations. I want so much to engage in healing conversations, yet I sometimes feel a barricade. Please don’t assume I’m a closet racist because I’m white.
Mary Crabtree,
Wooster, OH
This is what my 6 year old bi-racial granddaughter said to me this summer. We had read a picture book about one of my personal heroes, Harriet Tubman, and I was explaining slavery to her. She rubbed her arm, which is a lovely tone of brown, and then my slightly tanned white arm, and recognized that I am white, and she is brown. She looked at me and said, “Mimi, you could have owned me.” I was speechless! I am from “Bleeding Kansas” a proud free state, and currently live in Ohio, one of the bastions of the Underground Railroad. I’m a lifelong free-stater, have always believed in equality of all people, and this just took my breath away. She’s very bright, so I had to face this, and discuss it with her. I had to talk about the issues “back then,” and the issues “now” that people of color face. She said, “Oh, I know you would not be mean, Mimi, but some people are, I hear them at school, but it doesn’t bother me….I’m a beautiful brown girl, right?” Of course she’s beautiful, and she’s brown…but I began to wonder….isn’t she JUST beautiful? Can she be a beautiful girl…because that’s how I always thought of her…as my beautiful granddaughter…her color or race, has never mattered…and frankly, still doesn’t!
Lyn Franklin Hoyt,
Nashville, TN.
I’m on a search, a journey for words, to figure out how my family heritage can be used for good to heal atrocities, rather than become a memory of evil. Not to hide that evil, but face it head on as recognition slavery was wrong and to talk about what really happened and how it resonates today. My family hid it. We were ashamed. Some in denial we have any responsibility for our past. I did not even know or understand that I descended from one of the worst slave trading families until I was in my 30’s. Now as a public school advocate I see clearly the generational impact that seems inescapable for some as legacy of slavery and the continuing racism and oppression that exists in this country. The Franklin family is well known in slavery history circles. Ironically my children carry the HOYT name, a family well known for their participation in the Underground Railroad in Ohio and leaders of anti-slavery abolitionist societies in Michigan. How can speaking out help heal rather than hurt? How do I honor my dead relatives while still recognizing they were very flawed? We are entering a time where people want to talk about this. For that I am grateful for this site.
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