This past summer, my friend and I were perusing the exhibits at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture when she urgently called for my attention. “Psst… Isn’t this where you are from?” she asked, pointing at a placard titled African American Life in Montgomery County. Yes! I grew up, I was educated, and I was churched in Montgomery County, Maryland. So I eagerly read the exhibit’s description:
By 1900 there were at least eight African American communities in Montgomery County, Maryland. Unlike many rural African Americans, the residents were not tenant farmers—they owned their property and homes. This gave them greater control over the land and the crops they produced. They also directly benefited from improvements to their homes, which was an incentive to make additions and to stay in place. Descendants of these early settlers still live in these communities today. Continue reading “Considering Our Spaces in the Pursuit of Justice by Elise M. Edwards”
Feminism and Religion 