DaMaris Hill - A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland

A BOUND

IS ADANGEROUS ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 1 5/25/18 1:05 PM BY THE SAME AUTHORThe Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow:Staking Claims in the American Heartland\Vi-ze-bel\\Teks-chers\ ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 2 5/25/18 1:05 PM A BOUNDIS ADANGEROUS The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland DaMaris B. Hill ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 3 5/25/18 1:05 PM BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING Bloomsbury Publishing Inc. 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING, and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States 2019 Copyright DaMaris B. Hill, 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book.

All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. ISBN: HB: 978-1-63557-261-2; eBook: 978-1-63557-262-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 Designed by Tree Abraham Printed and bound in the U.S.A. by Berryville Graphics Inc., Berryville, Virginia To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. Bloomsbury books may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at specialmarkets@macmillan.com.

ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 4 5/25/18 1:05 PM To my ancestors, blood relatives or otherwise ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 5 5/25/18 1:05 PM ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 6 5/25/18 1:05 PM C O N T E N T S Preface xi bound Harriet Beecher Spruill-Hill xx Shut Up in My Bones xx Lucille Clifton xx In the Garden xx Study the Masters xx Miz Lucille xx Lucy Sayles xx Licorice for Lucy xx bound.fettered Annie Cutler xx The Concession of Annie Cutler xx Alice Clifton xx The Love Song of Alice Clifton xx Ella Jackson xx Bewitched xx Em Lee and Stella Weldon xx Em Lees Sweet on Stella xx Hannah Mary Tabbs xx Lusts and Gaines xx Ida Howard xx What You Oughta Know about Ida xx Laura Williams xx Stewing xx ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 7 5/25/18 1:05 PM Annie Wilson xx Frisk xx Black White Criminality in Insane Asylum xx Black Bird Medley xx bound/demarcation; boundaries Ida B. Wells xx v=cv>>! (for Ida B Wells Barnett II) xx Translation 1 xx Translation 2 xx Translation 3 xx Translation 4 xx Translation 5 xx Translation 6 xx Translation 7 xx Zora Neale Hurston xx Zora Neale Hurston xx Claudia Jones xx Claudia Jones xx Eartha Kitt xx Eartha Kitt xx Sonia Sanchez xx This Granny Is a Gangster xx Sandra Bland xx #SandySpeaks Is a Choral Refrain xx bound hurdle; spring forth Harriet Tubman xx Harriet Is Holy xx Joan Little xx Joan Little xx Ruby McCollum xx Ruby McCollum xx ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 8 5/25/18 1:05 PM Grace Jones xx Amazing Grace and Unloved Gentiles xx Fannie Lou Hamer xx Magnolias State xx boundhem; hemmed in (for Assata Shakur) Assata Shakur xx Revolution: Assata in 1956 xx Retina: Assata in 1970 xx Every Black Woman Knows the Constitution:Assata in 1972 xx Truth Is a Mirror in the Hands of God:Assata in 1976 xx Exodus: Assata in 1979 xx The Education of the Taw Marble xx A Reckoning: Assata in 1980 xx Space Program: Assata in 1981 xx The Arms Race/The War on Drugs: Assata in 1984 xx bound hinge Gynnya McMillen xx Trainers for Gynnya McMillen xx Patriot and Prisoner Coping xx A Recipe for a Son xx Gabriel Casts a Knuckle xx Remains xx Praying for Sons Acknowledgments xx Citations xx ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 9 5/25/18 1:05 PM ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 10 5/25/18 1:05 PM Preface Between 1980 and 2014 the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700%. The Sentencing Project Reading about the Black women in A Bound Woman Is a DangerousThing will not comfort. These poems honor Black women who have had experiences with incarceration. They were inspired by current events and historical framings of Black women freedom fighters such as Harriet Tubman, Assata Shakur, and Sandra Blandsome of whom have organized or inspired resistance movements over the last two centuries. Many of the poems detail the violent consequences Black women endure while engaged in individual and collective acts of resistance.

My grandmothers picture opens this book. As far as I know, she was never formally incarcerated. I chose to honor her because the Jane Crow styles of oppression prevalent during her lifetime were careful to include violence or threats of violence for accessing civil liberties. These oppressions were rooted in false ideas of social superiority that could make one feel imprisoned. Jane Crow types of oppression could also affect ones mental health, inciting mania or mental illness. Fracture a wise womans intellect.

As they did to so many other Black women in America, the violently enforced codes of Jane Crow oppression placed restrictions on my grandmothers body, and inadvertently on her mind. In a world seemingly so absent of love and justice, some have cho-sen to defensively armor themselves with ambivalence. Who can blame them? We all feel the ricochets of injustice savaging the landscape. Preface xi ABoundWoman_INT_1P.indd 11 5/25/18 1:05 PM The pain and urgency of our collective hurt makes it easy for some to believe that our present-day human rights movements, like Black Lives Matter, are a result of recent police shootings and civil brutalities. I caution against this; the Black Lives Matter movement and the Blue Lives Matter movement and the All Lives Matter movement are shrapnel in the long and rarely acknowledged American presumption that Black people are less than human. As a result of this presumption, Black women have been heavily invested in protest and resistance movements aimed at the acknowledgment of Black humanity.

Some of these movements began in the colonial era. Writing poems about such women has forced me to question what it means for a Black woman to engage in resistance within this particular time and this specific space. I concluded that it means that I must give myself permission to love, wail, weep, grieve, call on ancestors, begin a daily ritual of resistanceeven if it is rooted in my fears. It means understanding the fluidity of my emotionslike wanting to grab a gun and turn it toward my threats, before setting it inside my mouth, and then finally locking it away. The undervaluing of Black humanity is witnessed by millions when Ms. Diamond Reynolds and her daughter, loved ones of Philando Castile, grab a cellphone camera and collect evidence of Philandos deathan act of love.

Sharing grief. Bearing witness. For several months, I have been asking myself, What will my tears record today? I stand here, bound in a legacy of love, in the midst of the ricochet, in solidarity with the hurt and wounded, whether they occupy this life or the nextlike: Gynnya McMillen / Sandra Bland / Freddie Gray / Samuel DuBose / Sharonda Coleman-Singleton / Cynthia Hurd / DePayne Middleton-Doctor / Miz Susie Jackson and her cousin Miz Ethel Lance / Senator Reverend Clementa Pinckney / Tywanza Sanders / Reverend Doctor Daniel Simmons Sr. / Pastor Myra Thompson / Eric Garner / Trayvon Martin / Tamir Rice / Eric Harris / Walter Scott / Jon-athan Ferrell / Renisha McBride / Philando Castile and... The afflicted pray for healingjust as hungry people pray for bread, but when has God ever sent bread? In my recollection of the scriptures, God has always sent a woman. A woman like Eve and the

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