The Current of Legacy: Community Portrait Series
Shadow of 20. and Odd Negroes, Kori Price, 2021
Places hold energy. They carry history.
In August of 1619, the first enslaved Africans in the mainland English colonies arrived at Point Comfort, VA (modern-day Hampton, VA). These more than 20 enslaved Africans were sold for food and supplies, marking the beginning of slavery in the United States.
Regardless of race or background, these first enslaved Africans are a part of our history and our legacy.
I’m inviting the community to take part in a portrait series to explore their connection to these first enslaved Africans and to reflect on how their life impacts the history we are all currently creating together. Portrait participants will have the shoreline of Point Comfort projected onto them so that they may become part of the landscape while simultaneously casting the shadow of their legacy onto the shoreline.
Proceeds from this portrait project will be donated to The Fountain Fund, a local organization which provides low-interest loans and support to formerly incarcerated people who are working to successfully reenter their communities. Learn more here.
Nancy Archie
My wish for the next generation is Perseverance, Peace, and Equity.
“Put on your PPE.”
Adrienne and Rob Dent
I’d love to leave a legacy of reducing harm. For me right now that means learning; reading books, listening to talks, attending lectures, etc. about race, especially authored by Black Americans. It means committing to intimacy with my own bias toward white body supremacist systems- recognizing my complicity in these systems, metabolizing this knowledge (intellectually, emotionally, and somatically), and engaging other white bodied people in normalizing “calling in’ and “being called in” for acts of subtle exclusion (III).
It means witnessing and taking responsibility for my own white behaviors, characteristics, and qualities. It means being accountable. Yes, it means advocating for and practicing reparation while actively decentering whiteness.
It means looking at my past and the legacy that places me where I am. It means exposing the wounds my ancestors inflicted on others and, integrating an inclusive narrative elevating humanity over conquest and colonization.
It means learning from mistakes.
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This portrait was a somber and sacred opportunity to be within the landscape, not only of the shore where the first African enslaved people arrived, but within the multidimensional landscape of cause and effect. Averting my eyes from the camera’s gaze felt inappropriate and disrespectful as a beneficiary of white body supremacy. The camera felt like a penetrating gaze, uncomfortable to stand before and critical to face.
J.D. Walters
My Legacy Lies with the Atlantic: A Narrative Essay
An excerpt:
I wonder what it means to be “well,” and the only answer I can come up with for myself is to stop giving into the temptation of trying to draw lines to define where “legacy” lies in the water, lest I find myself cast into a cage.
I stare at my scars and trace my fingertips along unfeeling skin, and I see the lines of a story baring the bloodstains of my mistaken behaviors as I stare out from the shore. I listen to the stories of the Atlantic at the behest of those who came before me, and I lay myself bare as I howl truths to a horizon that I’m still trying to understand. I stand in the sand and I scream until the ethereal sound of primal rage makes a change that turns a tide into a new shore.
I stare at my scars in the mirrors in the glass and the shells I walk upon and where I see the stains and the shadows my footprints have made, I also see hope.
Kori Price
I’m intrigued and curious of who came before me. Before all of us.
This craving to find connection to them has propelled me to collect stories of my grandparents and some of their belongings. There’s more of their silverware in my kitchen than I’ll ever use. My Mom passed down aprons from my grandmother and great-grandmother and they seemed too precious to wear so I framed them. In my living room is a little table abandoned in my grandparent’s basement that I painted blue and my grandmother’s dresser where I used to run past and squeal with delight when we played our own made up version of tag. I’ve kept objects with their handwriting on them: a mason jar lid with grandpa’s, recipes with grandma’s.
As cherished as these objects of remembrance are, the stories and the understanding of my lineage stops short. There’s no Ellis Island for recording enslaved Africans.
In contemplating what I hope my legacy will be, I know I must consider the past. Regardless of if I know their names, their faces, or their stories, I know that they have influenced me. I am carrying forward their energy as whoever comes after me will carry mine.
It is my hope that I will leave in my wake the continuance of strength, perseverance, resilience, and wit that was passed down to me. It is my hope to honor the legacy of every Black person who came before me and to do my part to make the world a little better for who comes next.