Monthly Book Club Meeting
For the time being, all book discussions are via Zoom.
Those who will be joining the discussion should send an e-mail to Katherine by Tuesday morning. Please also cc jillcoogan@hotmail.com. At 7:30 pm that evening, right when the discussion is scheduled to begin, you will receive an e-mail from Katherine with a link to the meeting.
Remember that even if you don't have access to Zoom, you can phone in to the discussion -- RSVP by Tuesday morning to Katherine for phone link info.
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, by Tiya Miles. Led by Laura Symcak.
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language.
Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States. All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds. It honors the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today