The Regular Contributors to WIT are participating in a round table series, titled “Haunted.” This series will appear every (or every other) week throughout the Fall 2024 semester. Each current contributor to the blog will spend some time reflecting on what they are “haunted” by in their theological project.
Content Note: This post contains a discussion of murder and child loss. Discretion is advised for readers who are sensitive to topics of this nature.
I think I believe in ghosts. KJV Jesus commissioned the disciples to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” (Matthew 28:19). I have aways taken that to mean that since a ghost dwells within the divine Godhead, and since human beings are created in the image of the triune God, human ghosts likely exist, hover and move over the earth much like the holy one. This means too that human ghosts have function and purpose. They guide us. They comfort us. According to Hebrews 12:1, holy ghosts serve as witnesses to our lives of faith. They cheer us on. They invite us to remember. Remember the circumstances of their earthly existence. Remember how they entered eternity. Remember their fight for the faith. Remember their struggle for freedom.
The ghostly reminder of the struggle for freedom haunts me, especially the ghosts of Black-women-past who sacrificed their lives for simple human agency, and basic human rights and treatment. Many lived hard lives of struggle and servitude. They fought against racism, sexism and classism. They fought for citizenship, control of their own bodies, and the right to read, write, and vote. They raised their fists and their voices. Yet no sound rings more loudly in the atmospheric pressure that surrounds me than the groans and moans of enslaved Black mothers whose children were ripped away from them in slavery. They were forced to watch as their innocent, little Black babies were sold on the American auction block. Choices for them were few.
Womanist theologian, Delores Williams says that slave mothers “endurance and victory were directly related to the mother’s dependence on God and religious faith is revealed in both spiritual songs and slave narratives.”[1] Williams goes on to declare that, “it was the black mother who often protected the children and family as far as they could be protected during slavery.”[2] Sometimes, that meant that these mothers might try to escape for freedom via the Underground Railroad, but success was not a guarantee. Often, their daring attempts to secure freedom for their children ended in their tragic return to slavery, severe punishment, or death.
One mother, Margaret Garner, chose a different route. As federal officers shot their way into the home from which she and her family hoped to launch the final leg of their road to liberty, Margaret realized that the dream of freedom for her four children and herself would never become a reality. She exclaimed, “I will kill my children before they shall be taken back [to slavery], every one of them.”[3] In desperation, Margaret grabbed a butcher knife and swung it. She injured two of her four children and killed another, a two-year-old girl named, Mary.
“Margaret Garner, seeing that their hopes of freedom were in vain, seized a butcher knife that lay on the table, and with one stroke cut the throat of her little daughter, whom she probably loved the best.”[4]
Margaret’s story, trial and return to slavery was sensationalized in national newspapers. The February 2, 1856 edition of the New York Times tells the story under the headline: “The Slave Tragedy in Cincinnati: Additional Particulars – The Coroner’s Inquest and Order of the Jury – The Mother’s Declaration about Her Child – Conflict between the State and National Officers – Great Excitement.”[5] Though her trial garnered “great excitement,” that excitement did not translate into great concern. The news accounts do not show care to recount the conditions of her life that would cause her to make such a drastic choice. They did not address the impact of slavery on this twenty-two-year-old mother of four — two of whom were likely fathered by her slave holder.[6] News reports did not inquire about the hopelessness she must have felt that made her conclude that killing her children, with the intent to kill herself, was her best option. Reporters did not ask her if she missed her precious little girl. I wonder if anyone one asked God, how can this be?
After the trial in Cincinnati, OH, Margaret, her husband, infant daughter and two sons were set to return to slavery in the South.[7] In the weeks after her trial, Margaret lost her infant daughter, Cilia, who drowned in a steamboat accident.[8] People speculated whether Margaret killed her daughter by drowning the child with the intent of drowning herself.[9] Nevertheless, upon learning that her infant daughter had died by drowning, Margaret allegedly “displayed frantic joy.”[10]
Joy.
How can a mother experience joy at the death of her child? I can only try to relate through my own child loss experience. When I lost my two children, I felt anything but joy. I beat myself up, blaming myself for their deaths. Despair and agony hung over my head like a dark cloud. I never thought joy would return. I asked God how this could happen to me. Why would God allow this? I turned to the Bible and found little comfort. Prayers, gospel music and hymns did nothing to soothe my spirit. Unlike Margaret, child loss for me served no higher purpose, no freedom, no joy. But as a ghost and witness over my faith, Margaret Garner now roams over my soul. She reminds me that no matter my circumstance, the semblance of freedom that I experience is the realization of the dreams she had for Mary and Cilia. Though Margaret died of typhoid fever in 1858,[11] she never stopped hoping for freedom. Reportedly, before she died, Margaret urged her husband to “never marry again in slavery, but to live in hope of freedom.”[12]
“But mama don’t cry for me, ride for me
Try for me, live for me
Breathe for me, sing for me
Honestly guidin’ me” [13]
Through centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, church bombings, and police shootings, Margaret’s hope for freedom lives on. The life that I enjoy only exists because Margaret, my grandmothers, my mother, and millions like them dared to imagine freedom for their little Black babies. Their ghosts cheer for me and guide me. They encourage me to raise my voice and shout if I must for freedom. They give me hope and courage. They remind me that where the Holy Ghost is, there is indeed liberty.
Still, the ghosts of these mothers haunt me. They brood over my studies and research reminding me to publicize their narratives no matter how uncomfortable they make me, my peers, students or readers feel. Even if the stories are repeated, they urge me to tell them again and again. They beg me to keep hoping for freedom. They remind me that godly hope does not lead to disappointment and they whisper, “As we still wait for the nation to repent for forcing us into the dire choices we were compelled to make, it is your responsibility, Kim, to live and thrive in the beauty of this life, hoping, praying and fighting on until true freedom comes.”
Photo of Denyce Graves playing the role of Margaret Garner seen on trial in the opera of the same name (2005) courtesy the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights
[1]. Delores Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, (1993, repr., Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), 34.
[2]. Ibid., 36.
[3]. New York Times, February 2, 1856.
[4]. Levi Coffin (Reminiscences), “Margaret Garner Kills One of Her Children Rather than Permit Her to be Returned to Slavery,” (Cincinnati, 1876), on Digital History, https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=510.
[5]. “The Slave Tragedy in Cincinnati: Additional Particulars – The Coroner’s Inquest and Order of the Jury – The Mother’s Declaration about Her Child – Conflict between the State and National Officers – Great Excitement,” New York Times, February 2, 1856, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1856/02/02/76452571.pdf.
[6]. Rebecca Carol, “Overlooked, Margaret Garner,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/obituaries/margaret-garner-overlooked.html.
[7]. Kentucky Human Rights Commission, Hall of Fame, Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians, Margaret Garner, https://kchr.ky.gov/Hall-of-Fame/Pages/Margaret-Garner.aspx.
[8]. “Kentucky in the Eyes of Women: Margaret “Peggy” Garner,” Kentucky Museum, April 13, 2021, https://kentucky-museum.org/margaret-garner/.
[9]. “The Cincinnati Slave – Another Thrilling Scene in the Tragedy, The Liberator, 26(13:3), March 21, 1856, https://fair-use.org/the-liberator/1856/03/21/the-liberator-26-12.pdf.
[10]. Ibid.
[11]. Kentucky Human Rights Commission, Margaret Garner.
[12]. Ibid.
[13]. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and James Blake, “Freedom,” track 10 on Lemonade, Parkwood Entertainment, 2016.
Leave a Reply