Grenada, Mississippi.
Land of my ancestors.
I traveled here to the birthplace of my mother. A celebration of the life and passing of the last great matriarch of the Applewhite clan…
My Aunt Bobbie Jean,
My mother’s sister.
Like so many Black folks living in the North, our roots remain firmly in the South. Most often, Mississippi. I spent the summers of my childhood in this verdant convection oven, carpeted with red dirt, wallpapered with gigantic weeping willow trees and lined with scant few proper sidewalks.
This is an abbreviated photo essay of Shiloh MB Church in Holcomb, Mississippi, an even smaller nearby town. It sits on land now owned by my family and extended family. It’s a lot of land and I’m still trying to get my head around that.
The presently dilapidated Shiloh MB Church was built as a “slave church” by the French slave owner, Greenwood Leflore in the late 1800s. It was originally named LeFlore Baptist Church and sat in the pasture across the street, but was relocated due to constant flooding.
A little story as told to me by James Miller, the caretaker:
The call to worship bell was once stolen by a white photographer from Florida. Seriously.
He took it to Florida.
The church bell.
I swear… does it never end?
It’s a sickness, perpetuated in the blood.
Has to be.
Anyway, more recent ancestors weren’t here for his shit, and they had time. They tracked his ass down and made him bring the bell back. Given what I know about my family and about myself, I can imagine what they must have said to him. Words that left no room for doubt about the consequences...
The bell came back.
There are plans to restore this church. My plan is to return to Grenada/Holcomb, Mississippi to make more comprehensive photographs and stand in the nearby cotton fields where my ancestors lived and died and bled and prayed and watched in helpless horror as their little babies were sold off to the highest bidder and ultimately came to own this land while being denied the resources to realize its potential.
Focus.