Black Literary Massachusetts, A Travel Guide

Or how the algorithm got me daydreaming

I follow Travel and Leisure magazine on Instagram because I REALLY like to daydream about vacations (that I probably will never take.) The other day, I followed the “link in bio” to an article about which state has the worst drivers (Massachusetts) and that led me to another article. It was a lovely 2021 piece by novelist Dinaw Mengestu “What My Family Learned on a Literary Road Trip Through New England.” https://www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/road-trips/new-england-road-trip-to-american-authors-homes

This prompted me to daydream about what places I would put on a literary road trip through Massachusetts. And because I have this Substack, I’m sharing my daydream here. Unsurprisingly, my list has a decidedly African American literary and social justice bent because it’s the tradition I have studied most (though not exclusively) and one in which I stand. Plus, since I gave MA a bit of a bad rap in my last post, this shows some of what makes it a special place.

Here goes:

Let’s begin in Cambridge:

Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) arguably the most important slave narrative written by a woman which is a foundational text in African American literature and has inspired numerous books, visual artists, and more, lived as 17 Story Street in Cambridge and is buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

https://theclio.com/entry/133861

Jacobs wrote “My master had power and law on his side, I had a determined will. There is power in each.” That’s a testimony for the ages.

For a more academic style discovery, visit the Schlesinger Library at Harvard which is open to the public: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/about-the-library/visit-the-library which focuses on research on women and houses the papers of the brilliant 20^th century Black feminist poet/intellectual June Jordan.

Here’s a link to a program I participated in in honor of the arrival of her papers at the library in 2018 with Joshua Bennett, Mariame Kaba, and Solmaz Sharif:

I met June Jordan once in the late 1990s, and what I most remember about that encounter was that she had a luminous smile. And she and Toni Morrison (who was also there) were clearly dear friends. Here are some Jordan poems if you aren’t familiar:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/june-jordan#tab-poems

And since it’s just across the street, stroll past the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the alma mater of several members of the Combahee River Collective-- like Margo Okazawa-Rey and Beverly Smith-- a Black feminist organization of the 1970s which penned what is often termed the key text for the modern Black feminist movement, “The Combahee River Collective Statement” which should be read by everyone who is interested in the liberation of oppressed, exploited and marginalized people:

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/

Next take a trip over the Charles River to Boston to encounter the celebrated 18^th century Black poet Phyllis Wheatley who was born in Senegambia, captured and enslaved as a child, and brought to Boston. She was preternaturally gifted and educated by her owners.  Wheatley’s first poem was published when she was only 13 years old (see a bio and some of her work here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley) . There are numerous places to visit in Boston in honor of Phyllis Wheatley, detailed at

https://wheatleysboston.org

but I’ll mention a few here: The Old South Meeting House where she was a congregant, the Second Church where she married her husband John Peter and the statue that now stands in her honor on Commonwealth Avenue.  

David Walker, author of the 1829  call to insurrection“David Walker’s Appeal” https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html

a text written directly to the enslaved people of the South, reaching them through Black sailors and readings under the cover of night at brush harbor gatherings,  and Maria W. Stewarthttps://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1833-maria-w-stewart-address-african-masonic-hall/

thought to be the first woman of any race to deliver a public speech in the United States,  BOTH lived for a time at 81 Joy Street in Boston.

https://www.nps.gov/places/walker-stewart-house-joy-street.htm  

Faneuil Hall, named after Peter Faneuil who was a sugar, molasses, rum, dish and produce merchant and slave trader, is a historic Boston market and meeting place with plenty of food and shopping. Frederick Douglass: abolitionist, writer, the most photographed man of the 19^th century, and arguably the father of the African American literary tradition, spoke at Faneuil Hall on multiple occasions. The first time was in 1849, when he argued that abolitionists must defend Mexico against U.S. incursion (to expand slavery) and here’s the text of that speech:

https://www.boston.gov/news/black-history-boston-frederick-douglass-speaks-faneuil-hall

And Dorothy West, novelist and one of the younger luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance was born in Boston but I don’t know where she lived as a child. If anyone does, please share. Her home on in East Chop in Martha’s Vineyard is where her historic marker is: https://mvafricanamericanheritagetrail.org/trail-sites/dorothy-wests-east-chop-highlands-home/

and it is worth a visit (and I highly recommend the African American heritage trails of Boston, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.) But while in the city, you can go to the home Malcolm X lived in with his older sister Ella Little in Roxbury at 72 Dale Street https://www.malcolmxhouse.org  And while there take a short walk over to the Black owned Frugal Bookstore

https://frugalbookstore.net

The “Mapping Malcolm X” project offers a number of other sites to visit, including the prison where he was held in Concord. https://mizanproject.org/mapping-malcolms-boston/

But the place I would recommend you actually visit in Concord is Walden Pond and Woods, where Henry David Thoreau wrote his famous text. And if you remember, Thoreau wasn’t alone in the woods. He described the African Americans he encountered there (I wrote about them in my old newsletter for the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/08/remembering-thoreau-black-residents-concord/676728/ ) And you can learn more about that historic community if you visit Robbins House:

https://robbinshouse.org

Next, if you keep driving out on Route 2, you will make your way to the Berkshires were there are other treasured sites. In Amherst, you can visit the W.E.B. DuBois Center at UMASS which has an extraordinary collection of the papers of the most prominent African American intellectual in American history, who was also the father of American sociology, and an author of history, fiction, memoir, as well as a founder of the NAACP, socialist, anti-colonialist, expatriate to Ghana, and on and on. Keep traveling to his birthplace in Great Barrington, Massachusetts where you can visit locations he writes about in his classic text “The Souls of Black Folk.” https://www.duboisnhs.org/w-e-b-du-bois-homesite/

And while you are there, you can also visit the vacation home of James Weldon Johnson and his wife Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was considered the father of the Harlem Renaissance, and most noted for his novel “Autobiography of An Ex Colored Man” and as the lyricist of the song that would become known as the Black National Anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Here’s my 2018 book about the song:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/may-we-forever-stand-a-history-of-the-black-national-anthem-imani-perry/9849337?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAACfld41vaolHXh-Su7Zsr2w6wGRyt&gclid=Cj0KCQjwxsm3BhDrARIsAMtVz6P4ZFjngAG2oh7QxrOCGZHwVQ6wPTGQNMfGg-cAeXKzcGrX-ZOHFQ8aAm-eEALw_wcB

Johnson was also an educator, lawyer, diplomat, and leader in the NAACP. Here’s a nice write up about his home in Great Barrington:

https://theberkshireedge.com/the-home-of-james-weldon-johnson-legacy-of-the-harlem-renaissance-reborn/

Last summer as a fellow of the DuBois Forum I visited the DuBois and Johnson sites and it was a deeply moving experience. I recommend you follow the work of that organization founded by scholars David Levering Lewis, Kerri Greenidge and Kendra Field  

https://duboisforum.com

Of course, this list isn’t comprehensive at all. It’s just what came to my mind in a daydreaming moment. Please feel free to add other suggestions. Finally, I want to add that even if you don’t visit these locations, reading allows you to travel with the writers through time and space and place which is the best part. Encounters with words are human and can lead us to becoming more humane and we are in desperate need right now of human decency and moral courage.

Oh, and there are many great books about each of these figures. I don’t have time today to list them all (teaching day) but please share ones you recommend.