It’s spring and at the driver seat you feel the mixture of increasingly warm sun and cool wind through slightly cracked windows as you travel U.S. Route 301 South. On these days, you’re joined by your family: mother, sister, and niece, who despite the journey revel in the opportunity for togetherness, fresh air, and memory recall…especially your mother. The road is off the beaten path and on it there are no indications of the hustle, bustle, and pollution that is city life. One can smell the scent of pine, poplar, and spruce as you pass vast amounts of forestry, seemingly dilapidated old country stores, and homemade wired fences that are clear indications that you are in just one of the many rural areas of the state that Black folks know as “down home” or “the country”. Mama was born a country girl, one of 16, in another rural county called Powhatan, VA, yet the counties that we pass en route to our destination conjure stories out of her with striking clarity, like those of the griots of centuries past. It is partially these stories that you enjoy the most about these trips, as they sound more like something out of a Zora Neale Hurston novel than real life. Though most of the stories are presented with joyous introspection many still hint at the fact that Mama is old enough to remember the dividing lines of a segregated county, the crushing poverty (she often spoke of walking miles to school shoeless as a child), and the sternness of your grandparents, particularly your grandfather who has often been described as a “mean red man”. As the car fills with the cross talk of reminiscence, you let your right foot slowly off the accelerator allowing the car to drift just slightly down the country highway in a way that has now become familiar. You are in Southampton County, VA a stone’s throw from Greenville County where your father was born, under nearly similar circumstances as Mama. But, this area also tends to capture your attention for other reasons. Gesturing matter-of-factly with one hand on the steering wheel and the other toward the passenger side window as to get the attention of all in the car, you notice the massive fields of green speckled with wooly white tips. In a way, it’s surreal, like an out-of-body experience that has transplanted you from reality to the pages in a history book. “Who would’ve thought cotton fields existed anymore?” you rhetorically and cynically ask, your linking them with Black enslavement (your ancestors) momentarily obscuring the fact that chattel slavery’s so-called end, didn’t bring an end to the growth of the crop itself. The field is empty, with the breezes pushing and pulling the leafage back and forth as to create something of a ripple effect in the distance. But in your mind, you imagine a sea of Black bodies toiling in the sun as if you and everyone in that moment have a communicative ability to bring forth the forbearers themselves. In the short but piercing way that Black women have a talent for showing their contempt with a roll of the eyes and a huff in the breath, the passengers let out some variation of this: “Hmm…redneck bastards!”. As you drive along, the multiplicity of the cotton fields are almost overwhelming and leads to more cross talk, history, politics, economics, lineage, all in a way that is removed from the obscurity of statistics, graphs, charts, and town halls on racism. Yes, you know that all of those are important to the conversation, and important in the advancement of a justice that has yet to be served to Black people but, these trips and these talks are ultimately proof positive that white supremacy is a structure with real and felt consequences and experiences. As the succession of cotton fields dwindle back into makeshift gates, and rickety houses that appear as if being crushed under the weight of a dark and heavy legacy, you notice on one such dwelling a larger than life size flag of “the stars and bars”. Further down the road, you notice a large billboard that reads “Parker Oil & Gas Co.” You remember the numerous occasions when on the highway, you would pass or be passed by large petroleum tankers reading the same company brand. You know instinctively (and later from actual proof) that the company is not owned or operated by Black people and that they are located in South Hill, VA not far from where you are. Parker is your surname, the surname of your father, and your paternal grandparents, and so on and so forth as forced upon your antecedents by a white slave and landowner Drewry Parker. You wonder what the connection if any to these Parker’s, knowing that is more than plausible that the apparitions in the cotton fields could easily have a connection to this company….and whatever wealth gained. Part serious but jokingly you say “See that sign? I’m coming down here to get my money!”. The laughter momentarily breaks the intensity of the conversation as you realize that you are getting closer to your destination. Casually, the mood in the car sobers as you pull up to a blue state department sign that reads “Virginia Department of Corrections; Greenville Correctional Facility”. The entrance is like a long wide driveway or a short road at the end of which sits a behemoth solid beige structure in some ways, gothic in appearance. For acres, it seems, fences line the facility and curiously as you always do, you look out of the car as you find a parking space only to notice a mass of bodies in the distance, most clad in orange skull caps, and some mixing between gray sweats and blue jean state uniforms. You over hear the inaudible conversations in the distance, notice some to the brothers playing ball or walking the yards and you wonder how many of them you probably grew up with. You attempt to imagine the feeling of being put away from friends, family, loved ones for years at a time. You’re aware that while not every man in here is innocent, there is no coincidence that most of those you see look no different than you. Shaken out of your moment, you lock the car doors family in tow, easing toward the white building with the blue double doors. You are in the waiting lounge, and the visitors for the most part all look like you and your family. It is visiting day. But, you are not just visiting your uncle you realize, you’ve effectively time travelled the evolution of a system.
