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In “The Site of Memory” Toni Morrison discusses the conventions around slave narratives and other writings dealing with enslaved people in the United States, noting that in these writings “there was no mention of their interior life” (70). From there, Morrison states that her “job becomes how to rip that veil drawn over ‘proceedings too terrible to relate’” (70). This is one of Morrison's major goals in Beloved. She wanted to show the complex, internal lives of those who were enslaved, their fears, anger, pain, hope, joy, love, and so on. To engage with their lives and with the full range of complexity within them.

In her foreword to Beloved, Morrison further expands on the thoughts and goals that guided her when writing the novel:

“Inevitably these thoughts led me to the different history of black women in this country—a history in which marriage was discouraged, impossible, or illegal; in which birthing children was required, but ‘having’ them, being responsible for them—being, in other words, their parent—was as out of the question as freedom. Assertions of parenthood under conditions peculiar to the logic of institutional enslavement were criminal” (pp. XVI-XVII).

This is a history that Morrison further explores in “Rediscovering Black History”: "Consider, for example,  the origin...Yet the black mother-mammy continues to rock the white baby, knowing she may one day have to defend herself against that child who could grow up to beat her bloody" (pp. 50-51).

When I began thinking about this exhibit, I was preoccupied with the many complex depictions of motherhood in Beloved. The basis of the novel is the complicated, intense relationships between mothers and their children. More specifically, an exploration of the relationships between enslaved and formerly enslaved mothers and their childre. The specific challenges they face, the varying ways that they cope with and address those challenges, and the difficult choices that many of them had to make. Then, I returned to "The Site of Memory" and Morrison's discussion of the lives and writing of enslaved people. I wanted to incorporate and pay attention to the interior lives of enslaved people in this exhibit as well.

As Morrison does in Beloved, I wanted to explore the interior lives and history of Black women in this country within my exhibit. I focused on Black mothers and enslaved mothers in some of the artifacts, but I also included artifacts that focused on Black women outside of the context of motherhood as well. I wanted the artifacts to show the range of complexity, pain and sorrow as well as joy and hope. As Morrison states in "Rediscovering Black History": “pain, anger, befuddlement, melancholy and despair were not—are not—the only emotions defining the lives of black people in this country. In fact, the real excitement of working on the book lay precisely in those areas which had nothing at all to do with despair” (50). Likewise, while some of the artifacts do reflect pain or despair, some are dedicated to the joy, love, and happiness that Black mothers and Black women found and created for themselves.

With this non-fiction inspiration provided by Morrison and the artifacts I've curated, I hope to engage with the complex, internal lives of women in Beloved. I want to connect those fictional moments of love, pain, anger, hope, so on, with historical examples of those moments. I draw on the fictional lives of Sethe, Baby Suggs, and Ella specifically in this exhibit and their unique histories and experiences to makes these connections.

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This artifact is a newspaper clipping included in "The Black Book." In this clipping, P.S. Barrett describes his meeting with Margaret Garner, a woman who escaped enslavement but was eventually found by patrollers who attempted to remand her and her children back into slavery. Margaret Garner attempted to kill her children to prevent this, taking the life of one of her children. Morrison uses Margaret Garner's story for the basis for Beloved, stating in the foreword to the novel: "Summoning characters who could manifest the intellect and the ferocity such logic would provoke proved beyond my imagination until I remembered one of the books I had published back when I had a job. A newspaper clipping in 'The Black Book' summarized the story of Margaret Garner" (XVII).

Sethe, like the historical Margaret Garner, frees herself from enslavement and also kills one her children for the same reasons as Margaret Garner. Morrison does not replicate the life of Margaret Garner in Sethe, stating: "The historical Margaret Garner is fascinating, but, to a novelist, confining" (XVII). By not confining herself to history as written, Morrison is able to fully explore the inner life of Sethe while also making a historical connection. The writings about enslaved people, as Morrison observes, are lacking in that regard. Morrison explores through Sethe's story the lingering pain that comes with killing one's child and the still-living horrors of enslavement.

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This clipping comes from "The Black Book" and features a photograph and the lyrics to "All the Pretty Little Horses" identified in the clipping as an "authentic slave lullaby." The photograph, titled "Slave and Friend", shows an enslaved Black woman holding a white child. Morrison discusses this lullaby and the history of Black women being assigned as caretakers to white children in "Rediscovering Black History." Morrison states: "We knew nothing of Head Start programs, yet we were admirably suited to raise white leaders during their most formative years... Her thoughts, however, are elsewhere - on her own child, whom she must neglect" (pp. 50-51).

This  artifact relates to the forcible separation of Black mothers and their children in Beloved. Baby Suggs, for example, loses almost all of her children while they are very young. They were stolen from her by her enslavers, often during infancy. This is a source of great pain for Baby Suggs, who mourns being unable to care for her children, just like the mother in the lullaby—"What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children" (28).

Likewise, Sethe is separated from Beloved. Though she is the one who kills her child, the act is a result of her fears about what her enslavers will do to her children. "She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them" (192). Sethe may commit the act, but enslavement is the driving force behind it. The inevitable neglect and separation of her and her children, the pain and abuse they would experience, like what is represented in this lullaby, all play a part in Sethe killing her child.

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This artifact is an audio recording of an interview with Mrs. Laura Smalley, a formerly enslaved woman, who recounts her experiences on a plantation in Texas. She describes how one enslaved woman, identified as Aunt Tishe, was assigned to care for the enslaved children. Aunt Tishe, as Mrs. Smalley recalls, was responsible for monitoring the behavior of the children and feeding them throughout the day. Mrs. Smalley also recalls how enslaved mothers on the plantation nursed their children, "something or other like nine months" or until they are "big enough, you know, to eat."

Much of what Mrs. Smalley describes is similar to how Sethe's childhood is described. Sethe recalls Nan, "the one who knew best, who was around all day, who nursed babies, cooked, had one good arm and half of another" (pp. 73-74). Like Aunt Tishe, Nan also acted as a caregiver to the enslaved children on the plantation. Sethe also recalls seeing her birth mother very little, stating "She must of nursed me two or three weeks—that's the way the others did. Then she went back in rice and I sucked from another woman whose job it was" (72). This is also similar to Mrs. Smalley's story, where most of the mothers had to work long hours while their children stayed with Aunt Tishe.

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Ex-slave Narratives - Interview with Mrs. Laura Smalley

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Ex-slave Narratives - Interview with Mrs. Laura Smalley

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Letter From Ida B. Wells to Her Daughters

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Letter From Ida B. Wells to Her Daughters

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This artifact is a letter from Ida B. Wells, an African-American journalist and civil rights activist, to her daughters. In this letter, Wells regrets being unable to return home and help her daughters celebrate Halloween because she is scheduled to deliver a speech at a church. Wells expresses her love for her daughters, stating: "Whenever I think of my dear girls, which is all the time, such a feeling of confidence comes over me." She also states "I have had many troubles and much disappointment in life, but I feel that in you I have an abiding joy." Wells expresses the love and hope many mothers feel for and see in their children.

Sethe, too, feels this kind of love and hope for Denver. Sethe tells Paul D that "Nothing bad can happen to [Denver]. Look at it. Everybody I knew dead or gone or dead and gone. Not her. Not my Denver. Even when I was carrying her, when it got clear I wasn't going to make it... she pulled a whitegirl out of the hill. The last thing you'd expect to help" (50). Sethe expresses intense love for her children, stating at one point that "motherlove was a killer" (155). Sethe loves her children, she sees the best in them, and finds some of her joy in being a mother to them.

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This artifact is an audio file from a series of interviews with Johnnie Tillmon, an African-American activist. In this interview, Tillmon describes her experiences as a working mother and her experiences utilizing welfare. After hearing about the mistreatment of other women utilizing welfare, Tillmon then decided to organize with other women in her community, eventually founding ANC Mother's Anonymous. The group's focus was on changing the welfare system and, in its early days, interviewed over 300 women.

There are many similar examples of community organizing in Beloved. Ella, for example, works with Stamp Paid in assisting those who self-emancipated from enslavement (pp.  107-108). Ella also plays a very important role in gathering other women in her community to assist Sethe (301).

While Tillmon's work and the setting of Beloved are removed by many decades, they relate to one another in that they are both examples of Black women organizing and working within their communities. Tillmon helped women needing welfare and worked to decrease the stigma around welfare utilization. Ella helped many in her community through her work with Stamp Paid. Like Tillmon, she organizes with the women in her community, and helps Sethe.

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The Denver Star- "As Reported by Press Agent"

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The Denver Star- "As Reported by Press Agent"

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This artifact is a page from The Denver Star, published July 13, 1918. It features an article reporting on a session of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs and focuses on the address given by Mary B. Talbert. Talbert discusses the conditions in the American South, like the rampant mob violence against Black Americans and Jim Crow. Talbert states: "'The government should make lynching a treason punishable by death.' 'America must make reparations for the hundreds of lynchings of colored people.'" Talbert also discusses the "redemption of Frederick Douglass Home" and that it would be the home to "all relics, manuscripts and articles of historical value to the race."

This artifact also relates to the many instances of community organizing done by women in Beloved. Ella's work, as explored in the Tillmon artifact, also relates to this artifact. In addition, Baby Suggs' work as a lay preacher also relates to this artifact. Baby Suggs brings together the people of her community and promotes self-love and self-care. "'You got to love it. This is flesh I'm talking about here. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you'" (104).

This artifact also relates to the mob violence that was rampant during the Reconstruction era and beyond. This violence is one of the reasons Paul D, despite being so unnerved by Beloved, "couldn't put her out... It was one thing to beat up a ghost, quite another to throw a helpless coloredgirl out in territory infected by the Klan" (79). Stamp Paid also observes this violence, "Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes, eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone in Kentucky" (212). This violence, observed by Mary Talbert and the characters in Beloved, was a collective threat to all Black Americans.

The formation of groups like this by Black women were a way of advocating for themselves and their communities, of combating the violence of white America. It was also, as seen in the article, a way to preserve artifacts and documents precious to the community.

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“As Reported by Press Agent.” The Denver Star [Denver], 13 July 1918, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025887/1918-07-13/ed-1/seq-4/

Black Book. edited by Middleton Harris et. al, Random House, 1974, p. 10.

Black Book. edited by Middleton Harris et. al, Random House, 1974, p. 65.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Vintage Books, 2004.

Morrison, Toni. “Rediscovering Black History.” What Moves at the Margin, edited by Carolyn Denard, University Press of Mississippi, 2008, pp. 39-55.

Morrison, Toni. “The Site of Memory.” What Moves at the Margin, edited by Carolyn Denard, University Press of Mississippi, 2008, pp. 65-80.

Smalley, Laura. “Interview with Laura Smalley, Hampstead, Texas, part 1 of 5.” By John Henry Faulk and Unidentified Female Interviewer, 1941. Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/afc1941016_afs05496a/.

Tillmon, Johnnie. “Tillmon, Johnnie (audio interview #1 of 5).” By Sherna Berger Gluck. California State University Long Beach, http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/224242.

Wells, Ida B. "Papers, Box 8, Folder 9." Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.IBWELLS#idp149818440