point of view
through me.I struggled. I strangled.I saw the myriad waters vibratelike a rainbow of flashing clawsjoining in the suffocating wetnesspenetrating, possessing, devouringbeast flinging me witha roar within, without.I was gone. 4My work with my family stories, slave narratives,ex-slave narratives, oral and written history, literatureabout black folk, and first hand experience with the terrorand violence of the racial status quo in the UnitedStates helped me to shape the following fictional conversationwith my ancestor, Caroline Gordon ofLynchburg, Virginia, affectionately called Caddy. If shecould speak to me about her life what would she say?How would she describe her contemporaries, thosetrapped in the terror of the slave labor system? Whatdoes this have to do with self-knowledge? I called thepiece “The Sage”:“Weep not for me because I am deadand you knew me not. Remember only that Ilived long enough to discover that I was notone but many. If you attach yourself only tomy suffering, I become nothing but the residueof oppression. Remember, I lived long enoughto discover that I was part of a hurricane, partof the twirl of lust, passion, joy, sorrow, cruelty,kindness, hate, love, laughter, birth anddeath that make up human existence. I knewwind, rain, water, fire and clouds. I discoveredthe beauty and ruthlessness in nature.Weep not for me because I am dead...Remember, I lived long enough to discover myown internal contradictions. I discovered myown strengths, weaknesses, lies, truths, falseness,and sincerity. I experienced the constancyof internal change within me. So I was bothhero and coward, conqueror and conquered,king and subject, owner and slave. Negativeand positive like everything else, everywhere.So you see, if you put my suffering above allelse, you stress only one part of me, only onepart of the whole. If you glorify my beauty, thenyou deny my ugliness. If you thus simplify myexistence, you desecrate my complexity.Weep not, for you have neither time norenergy…to waste. Remember you are at war. Awar started long ago. But do not abandon emotion.For life is empty devoid of emotion. But inwar, emotion must be backed up with intellect,power, discipline.Tears, curses, passivity and escapism neverwon battles, fed the hungry, clothed the naked,housed the homeless, weakened the enemy,or…cut through chains.” 5The life patterns, beliefs and customs traditionallyvalued by the storytellers in my family include:Remember the horrors of slavery. Never forget it.Cherish freedom. Listen to the wind for the whisper ofthe ancestor’s song. Listen with your heart and you willhear it. Weep not, we are at war. A war started long ago.What does all this say? Fantasy can be used toreflect the outcomes of self-knowledge. However, it canbe used to revitalize history, not to replace it. It can beused as one instrument in the mass of weaponry neededin the struggle for black liberation from racism andinjustice in the United States. It functions to free theimage of black folk behind the famous from their burialin a sea of undifferentiation. It functions to stir up the“mass” and capture the kaleidoscopic sense of complexityand diversity reflected in African American experiencesin the United States. It makes no pretense of conformitynor omnipotence. It values difference and doesnot deem it a hindrance to ultimate unity. It createsrather than documents and is based firmly upon theconviction that as much can be learned about selfknowledgefrom fiction as from fact.Dr. Kathryn L. Morgan is Sara Laurence Lightfoot EmeritaProfessor of History and Senior Research Scholar atSwarthmore College. Formerly on the board of the<strong>Philadelphia</strong> <strong>Folklore</strong> <strong>Project</strong>, she is part of this year’s LocalKnowledge project (p. 17). For more information about Dr.Morgan, visit the PFP website (www.folkloreproject.org.)Notes1The Community of Self. Jersey City, New Jersey: MindProduction, 1985. p. 312Some of these stories are recounted in Kathryn L. Morgan,Children of Strangers: The Stories of a Black Family.<strong>Philadelphia</strong>: Temple University Press, 19803Adapted from Kathryn Morgan, “More Excerpts from theMidnight Sun,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 5:1 (1977), pp. 86,88.4Adapted from Kathryn Morgan,“More excerpts from theMidnight Sun,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 5:1 (1977), p. 89.5Ibid “On black images and blackness,” Black World(December 1973), pp. 84-85.9