Unearthed Voices (excerpt ©2011)

Given the “fixed” perception of the “black” individual with regard to

American History, how does one unearth the hidden data associated with the African turned American in American History to denounce the adumbration and extend a broader history by restoring a more positive personification of the African-American/African-American Artist?

(public photograph)

PROLOGUE

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced,

where ignorance prevails, and where any one class

is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy

to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons

nor property will be safe.”

Frederick Douglass

This section includes a theatrical excerpt personally written in 2010. It unveils a

graphic representation of imagery inexorably positioned in my being. The dialogue

delivers a song of slavery ironically romanced by history teachers during my public

school experience in New York City. It evolved from an assignment for a recent US

History class. A course I was emphatically coerced into taking while obtaining an

Associates Degree in Dance at a junior college in Los Angeles, CA in 2010. Throughout

my earlier years of higher learning, my major never required the undertaking of such

curriculum. (No need to mention my disdain at this point.) While shouldering my very

first US History course, outside of public school, one of my tasks encompassed the

interpretation of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: a

book I had never read. Although, I was quite familiar with the gentleman as an individual

as well as several of his other literary works. Works I stumbled upon through self-

discovery.

The class’s culminating project involved coining a reaction paper that outlined

what slave life subsumed, according to Frederick Douglass. Following my intense perusal

of Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, I couldn’t bring myself to writing a traditional reaction paper. Since, my internal reaction wasn’t typical. Enamored by the storyline, I

became enslaved alongside young Fred and the other “black” persons’ exposés as they

unfolded. It wasn’t until the appendix that I received my freedom. My heart-wrenching

tears would not allow for regular rhyme. Nor, would my spirit man afford me to commit

such an indignity. Instead, I considered each tear a prophetic notion guiding the ink I was

to address to paper. The content of my thoughts deemed a more deserving home than that

of an expected reaction paper.

I determined the most efficacious presentation of said information would be

through action rather than simple regurgitation of raw consumption, or mindless banter

I’ve found in many undergraduate, entry-level reaction papers. The excerpt to follow will

illuminate key tenets associated with having been a slave through the eyes of a single

character. This character has experienced specific types of peoples and situations as

mentioned by Frederick Douglass’s text. Similarly, as the words from Douglass’ novel

leaped out, arresting my soul. I, too, attempt to expel the spiritual moans of slaves past

based on the struggles set forth in Douglass’s novel: setting a stage for the physical

atrocities suffered by his Afro-American brother and sisters.   I endeavor to speak

through the eyes of spirits gone before us who have etched their stories in my heart. The

vehicle: an old dusty mirror tucked away in the corner of the slaves’ lodging quarters.

An excerpt from A Song of Slavery ©2010 Nicole Elaine Avery

ACT I: Scene 1

(Voice Over): A normally unabsorbed mirror, now brazen with voice, stands before a

young slave girl. Serving as, yet, another vice of entrapment as well as a constant

reminder of her limited freedoms. Her true age remains a mystery, although it has been

said, she favors thirteen. She was born and raised on her master’s southern plantation during the mid 1800’s. With little food to sustain her weight, she stands a frail 5’7”

and a possible weight of 116 lbs. Her eyes hang low whilst her head held high in

practicum of what her overseer were to behold… the impression of her readiness to

denounce field work for the “Big House.” She shifts her body leftward to expose her

newly gained physique given her by the headmaster. The gift: a mulatto child awaiting

birth.