Interview with Melani Douglass
Recorded by Kiran Singh Sirah at Anacostia Neighborhoood Library, Washington D.C. in 2012:
I’m a woman of African descent, in America, whose view of the world is informed by the black experience. My mind is always moving, always in some shape or form or fashion, as a teacher I’m always creating lesson plans!
I was always raised from as long as I can remember with a clear understanding of not just my father’s father’s father’s family, but also of my father’s mother and my mother’s mother and father. Sometimes I’m nervous to only become defined by one fourth of my line, as that does not inform the majority of whom I am. My Frederick Douglass line is a clear part of my family thread. It’s almost like the golden thread that shimmers; it is what people see, you know? But, if you were try and cover yourself with only the golden thread, without the entire blanket you’d be quite cold. Having a new child, it is very important for me that she understands how all of these things come together to inform who she is as a person, how she can show up in this world so that she can be informed by these things but not limited by them.
I had to make that choice myself to not just be defined by only my Douglass line. A lot of people of African descent in the United States do not know their family history. Many people have questions about their family history — even my family history has been questioned. How do you walk forward when there is questionable information about your past?
Researching my own history, I came across a census paper for Frederick Douglass’ daughter and they had her listed as white. And I thought, “This is very interesting.” These are the same census papers that people use to see who they’re related to. Even as someone as famous as Frederick Douglass, who was doing the work that he did, had a daughter that even when she became a grown woman was still mistakenly identified as white. I mean, how does that happen? If that can happen for Frederick Douglass’ daughter then who else has that happened to? It makes me think about how many people were just not marked at all. What does that say about people’s values, society, or their place in it? It is interesting to think about. I understand people’s need for category as it allows people to give value to who they are. I do understand it’s a big world and categories are often there to help.
For me, home is not always where it’s easy or where it is comfortable. Finding a decent apple in Anacostia is very hard, you know! [laughs] Don’t try and get tomatoes unless you grow them yourself. But that’s not what makes home for me. Home to me is a place that calls you and brings you back to your center and allows you to collect your spiritual self in a way that can operate even with adversity. I wanted to put my time and my energy into this place I now call home and help contribute to this community.
When I moved to Anacostia, my grandfather on my Douglass side made it a point to see this house, because this place is where he grew up as a child. One day he sat and looked out of my window into the yard for an hour. He literally just sat there, still, in this place, but he still won’t talk about it! My grandfather is one hundred, but he doesn’t talk a lot about history. In our Douglass family we have this huge Bible, which has been in our family since 1844, but he will not talk about where this Bible came from. It has inscriptions in it, a letter from Frederick Douglass Junior to my great-grandfather Charles Douglass. It talks about him as his son, and mentions his grandson Joseph, but he will not talk about that. Whereas my grandmother on my mother’s side, when she got to be 72 years, she said, “I don’t like being old, I don’t want to be here longer, I did my three score and ten, I’m leaving in two years”. And in those last two years she spent time telling us everything.
Looking back at her photos, she was gorgeous. She was a diva! And then she would flip, as she had to put on men’s clothing and bring up four children. She had to be a domestic and was very vulnerable, as many black women were then. Not only was she a black woman, she was a black woman with four little girls and her husband was dead. She had to continue to make money for her family, and so she had to change her walk from this diva woman to this rough man that would shoot you! She moved out of slavery and sharecropping and moved here and looked after her land, her daughters, and she was a black woman from the South! She had to survive. What she did was amazing. She really just told me the truth, and I appreciate that more than anything.
Today, thinking about the world and in raising my child, I think about how we must act in a way that actively moves us forward and moves us together, and I want her not to be intimidated by the overwhelming presence of wrong, as life is resistance. Things will always be there, and so it is a chance to grow spirituality and develop. It is one thing to confess God and freedom, but it’s another thing to stand, to be alone. I want to raise my daughter in this way, in this world as it exists today.
Recorded by Kiran Singh Sirah at Anacostia Neighborhoood Library, Washington D.C. in 2012:
I’m a woman of African descent, in America, whose view of the world is informed by the black experience. My mind is always moving, always in some shape or form or fashion, as a teacher I’m always creating lesson plans!
I was always raised from as long as I can remember with a clear understanding of not just my father’s father’s father’s family, but also of my father’s mother and my mother’s mother and father. Sometimes I’m nervous to only become defined by one fourth of my line, as that does not inform the majority of whom I am. My Frederick Douglass line is a clear part of my family thread. It’s almost like the golden thread that shimmers; it is what people see, you know? But, if you were try and cover yourself with only the golden thread, without the entire blanket you’d be quite cold. Having a new child, it is very important for me that she understands how all of these things come together to inform who she is as a person, how she can show up in this world so that she can be informed by these things but not limited by them.
I had to make that choice myself to not just be defined by only my Douglass line. A lot of people of African descent in the United States do not know their family history. Many people have questions about their family history — even my family history has been questioned. How do you walk forward when there is questionable information about your past?
Researching my own history, I came across a census paper for Frederick Douglass’ daughter and they had her listed as white. And I thought, “This is very interesting.” These are the same census papers that people use to see who they’re related to. Even as someone as famous as Frederick Douglass, who was doing the work that he did, had a daughter that even when she became a grown woman was still mistakenly identified as white. I mean, how does that happen? If that can happen for Frederick Douglass’ daughter then who else has that happened to? It makes me think about how many people were just not marked at all. What does that say about people’s values, society, or their place in it? It is interesting to think about. I understand people’s need for category as it allows people to give value to who they are. I do understand it’s a big world and categories are often there to help.
For me, home is not always where it’s easy or where it is comfortable. Finding a decent apple in Anacostia is very hard, you know! [laughs] Don’t try and get tomatoes unless you grow them yourself. But that’s not what makes home for me. Home to me is a place that calls you and brings you back to your center and allows you to collect your spiritual self in a way that can operate even with adversity. I wanted to put my time and my energy into this place I now call home and help contribute to this community.
When I moved to Anacostia, my grandfather on my Douglass side made it a point to see this house, because this place is where he grew up as a child. One day he sat and looked out of my window into the yard for an hour. He literally just sat there, still, in this place, but he still won’t talk about it! My grandfather is one hundred, but he doesn’t talk a lot about history. In our Douglass family we have this huge Bible, which has been in our family since 1844, but he will not talk about where this Bible came from. It has inscriptions in it, a letter from Frederick Douglass Junior to my great-grandfather Charles Douglass. It talks about him as his son, and mentions his grandson Joseph, but he will not talk about that. Whereas my grandmother on my mother’s side, when she got to be 72 years, she said, “I don’t like being old, I don’t want to be here longer, I did my three score and ten, I’m leaving in two years”. And in those last two years she spent time telling us everything.
Looking back at her photos, she was gorgeous. She was a diva! And then she would flip, as she had to put on men’s clothing and bring up four children. She had to be a domestic and was very vulnerable, as many black women were then. Not only was she a black woman, she was a black woman with four little girls and her husband was dead. She had to continue to make money for her family, and so she had to change her walk from this diva woman to this rough man that would shoot you! She moved out of slavery and sharecropping and moved here and looked after her land, her daughters, and she was a black woman from the South! She had to survive. What she did was amazing. She really just told me the truth, and I appreciate that more than anything.
Today, thinking about the world and in raising my child, I think about how we must act in a way that actively moves us forward and moves us together, and I want her not to be intimidated by the overwhelming presence of wrong, as life is resistance. Things will always be there, and so it is a chance to grow spirituality and develop. It is one thing to confess God and freedom, but it’s another thing to stand, to be alone. I want to raise my daughter in this way, in this world as it exists today.