Carole Boston Weatherford & Jeffery Weatherford, author-illustrator, mother-son duo behind children's and young adult books: diverse, anti-racist nonfiction, biographies, poetry, historical fiction on African American heritage, culture, social justice. STEAM programs for K-12 and all ages.
When I share books about enslavement with students, some state that they would have revolted or escaped if enslaved. Those options were not the only acts of resistance waged by enslaved people.
In my verse novel, KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, illustrated by my son Jeffery Boston Weatherford, we trace our lineage from colonial America to the all-Black, Reconstruction-era villages of Unionville and Copperville that our forebears cofounded. This poem imagines how my ancestor, Prissy Copper, might have resisted while a house servant at Maryland’s Wye House plantation.
Art by Jeffery Boston Weatherford from KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE.
October is Family History Month, and true to form, I’m posting one day before it ends. My new verse novel, KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, is truly a family affair–a family history created by me and my son, illustrator Jeffery Boston Weatherford. The book spans four generations, extending from colonial America to the Jim Crow era. The action is set on Maryland’s largest enslavement plantation and in the all-Black Reconstruction era villages founded by our ancestors.
While my poems conjure ancestral voices and recreate lost narratives, Jeffery’s stunning scratchboard illustrations bring our ancestors, and the adversity they overcame, out of obscurity and life. From plantation ledgers, military records, material culture and the landscape, I learned so much about my forebears, their contemporaries and their milieu. With help from cousins who had done much of the genealogy, I traced my earliest known ancestors, Isaac and Nan Copper, to 1770. Hard as I tried, though, I could not find their/my African origins. When facts proved elusive, I took creative license. Engaging in what scholar Saidiya Hartman terms “critical fabulation,” I pushed past the archive and discovered more than I ever imagined. Here are my key takeaways.
Family is an enduring source of strength.
Names, dates and places form the branches of a family tree. Stories are the leaves.
Reclaiming history is generational wealth. Pass it on!
KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, my latest collaboration with award-winning illustrator Jeffery Boston Weatherford, launches Thursday, October 19, 6-9 PM at the Reginald Lewis Museum at 830 East Pratt Street in Baltimore. In KIN, our family’s history unfolds through my poems and my son’s art. The book discussion moderated by Dr. Leslie King Hammond will begin at 7 PM. There will also be a pop-up exhibition of Jeffery’s digital scratchboard art from the book. Register here. The first 125 registrants will receive a free copy of the book. Jeffery and I hope to see you there.
FAMILY TREES, ROYAL ROOTS, SCHOOL VISITS & FREE GUIDES
Why so sad?I just found out that Carole is not my mother.
How far back can you trace your roots? In KIN: Rooted in Hope, my son Jeffery and I reach back to 1770 at Maryland’s largest plantation and to the Reconstruction-era villages our ancestors co-founded. Dramatic poems and scratchboard art conjure our enslaved forebears, reclaiming lost narratives and a royal legacy.
Our new presentation based on KIN shares primary sources, poems, illustrations and the book’s backstory. We are now booking school and library visits for KIN and for K-12 programs about the Tuskegee Airmen, Tulsa Race Massacre, segregation/civil rights, jazz/the Harlem Renaissance/Great Depression, poetry and your choice of biographies. And we’re still celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop.
In case you missed these TEACHER GUIDES for recent and award-winning titles.
During the 1960s, my mother and I often visited the Baltimore Museum of Art. The museum’s crown jewel is the Cone Collection of impressionist art, which featured Edgar Degas’ sculpture, “Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen.” As a girl, that piece resonated with me because I too had taken ballet lessons and because I could almost look the youthful subject eye to eye.
Last month after viewing The Culture, the dopest exhibition ever of hip-hop-inspired art and artifacts, I strolled past the “Little Dancer” for old-time’s sake. I could not have been more shocked by what I saw. Standing across from “Little Dancer” is “Meredith,” Simone Leigh’s towering stoneware and steel counterpart to Degas’ sculpture. Adorned in a rafia skirt, Meredith is clearly of African descent.
After all those years of admiring “Little Dancer,” I was finally seeing myself in Meredith. She spoke not only to the Black girl I once was but to the Black woman I have become. Teary-eyed, I realized once again how much representation matters–for children and for adults.
My son Jeffery and I were recently interviewed by Preservation Maryland President Nicholas Redding on PreserveCast. We discuss our latest collaboration KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, an illustrated verse novel chronicling our genealogical quest to conjure our ancestors’ voices and visages. The book is set in Talbot County, Maryland, at Wye House, once the state’s largest enslavement plantation, and in the Black, Reconstruction-era villages of Unionville and Copperville, which our ancestors cofounded. KIN releases September 19, 2023. Pre-order here.
Inspirational picture books are great for Vacation Bible School. Follow the links to reading/activity guides for several acclaimed titles.
The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights. Inspired by Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, this book chronicles how African Americans looked to God at every stage of the freedom struggle.
By and By: Charles A. Tindley, The Father of Gospel Music. This founding father of gospel music composed 30-plus hymns that are still popular today. Sing a few. gospel_music_lesson-plan
Our most popular summer program has always been Jeffery’s hip hop workshop. The powerful workshop is going virtual this summer in hopes of reaching even more students. The program is ideal for libraries, camps and youth agencies. For booking information, contact carmenoliver@the bookingbiz.com.
