2. LARGER LOVE - Mary Brown Davis and Devotion (February 13, 2019)
Just a quick warning at the top: This episode includes grim depictions of violent acts, and as such, may not be suitable for children.
This is Middle America.
Planes Mistaken for Stars “To All Mothers”
2A
On February 12, 1831, Nat Turner, a black slave in southern Virginia, witnessed a solar eclipse. The devout Baptist was deeply affected by this wonder of the natural world, interpreting it as a black angel overcoming the white. He had witnessed several visions of God throughout his life, and this eclipse he took as a command that he slay the enemies of God “with their own weapons.” He then began purchasing muskets and organizing the slaves of Southampton County while traveling as a preacher for his master.
Six months later, Nat Turner led a slave rebellion against the cruelty of their oppressors, eventually commanding a group of more than 70 slaves and freemen. The uprising was put down 2 days later, with somewhere around 60 people dead.
In retaliation, the state executed 56 slaves accused of being part of the rebellion. Meanwhile, approximately 120 slaves and free blacks were murdered by militias and mobs in the area. Killings would have continued if it weren’t for General Eppes ordering troops and white citizens to stop… 2 weeks later.
After all, killing an innocent slave was essentially committing theft against the slave’s white owner.
Blacks suspected of participating in the rebellion were beheaded by the militias, and "their severed heads were mounted on poles at crossroads as a grisly form of intimidation." A section of Virginia State Route 658 remains controversially labeled as "Blackhead Signpost Road" in reference to these events.
The state then passed new laws prohibiting the education of black people, restricting their right to assembly, and requiring the presence of a white minister at all worship services.
Despite the cruelty of the backlash against the rebellion, or maybe as a result of, rumors ran rampant. White people were scared and rightly so. The state population in Virginia was nearly one third black, and some counties’ populations were more than half black. Word falsely spread that the rebellion had reached as far south as Alabama and that “armies” of slaves were marching through North Carolina.
The white women of Virginia, seeking a path forward through the chaos, created a campaign petitioning for either the gradual emancipation of blacks in the state, that is giving them freedom, or the colonization of blacks in the state, that is shipping them off to Africa. Petitions circulated between the women and eventually found their way into several city newspapers.
Scouts Honor “Other Side Of Town”
2B
Mary Brown Davis, born in the same year and of the same state as Nat Turner, was raised largely with an elderly black slave as her nanny. This nanny who watched over her “tottering infancy” bestowed upon Mary the belief that slavery was marked by “great injustice, cruelty, and oppression.”
When Mary’s father lost the family’s fortune and wound up in a debtor’s prison, Mary watched through the prison window as more than 50 of her family’s slaves were brutally sold off. The wickedness of slavery that she had lived with for her entire young life took shape in her mind as she witnessed the treatment of these people, including a new mother and her beloved nanny.
By the time of Nat Turner’s Rebellion, Mary had wed the journalist Samuel Davis. They had started a family in Winchester, a city in northeastern Virginia, and worked together in editing and publishing the Winchester Republican. This kept Mary plugged-in to current events, including the women’s campaign to get the state to move toward emancipation and colonization.
She grew more and more sympathetic to the plight of the slave, especially the female slave population. She also grew more and more interested in politics and the possible role of women therein. However, due to social structures of the time, she would need to keep her actions covert and based on grounds of moral concern and concern for the family, so as not to step outside the feminine sphere. To do otherwise would be to alienate her audience and undermine her purpose.
By 1837, the Davis family had left Virginia for the “free” state of Illinois and landed in my hometown. Filled with hope for a progressive and moral community, Mary began working with her husband on the Register and North-Western Gazetteer.
However, she quickly found that her hope had been misplaced. This was a river town and the “southern” city of St. Louis, Missouri was only 170 miles downriver. The community here refused to speak on the issue of slavery so as not to offend their economic ties to their slaveholding partners. As for “freedom,” most of the North had Black Laws on the books, restraining the free black population from voting, getting a public education, or participating in aspects of public social life.
Not long before the Davis family’s arrival in Illinois, a group of abolitionists had gathered in prayer for the nation’s slave population in the neighboring Tazewell County. A violent mob greeted the reverent group with a shower of thrown stones. This would not be the last time an angry mob descended upon abolitionists in Tazewell.
And, shortly after the arrival of the Davis family, the anti-slavery editor Elijah Lovejoy was murdered while attempting to protect his printing presses in Alton, Illinois. At this time, Mary’s own husband Samuel had opposed immediate emancipation, only landing on the side of the abolitionists when it served the idea of freedom of speech, such as in response to this murder and the destruction of Lovejoy’s print shop.
But despite the danger, Mary Brown Davis only strengthened her abolitionist beliefs. Interactions with the free black populations of Illinois and Virginia, along with the ingenuity of escaped slaves passing through town only served to further her love and respect for the black American.
Frustrated and seeking an outlet, Mary Davis wrote for abolitionist publications from around the region. She became an active supporter of the Liberty Party, and by the early 1840s, she was writing regularly for Chicago’s Liberty Party newspaper, Western Citizen.
Finally, 1843 proved to be a turning point for the Davis family.
After a brief trip west to the abolitionist oasis that was Knox County, Mary Davis returned home writing, “When I draw near to Peoria, I could almost weep to think of the desolation that sin, and a subserviency to slaveocracy are making here.”
Mary then pushed to host a “prayer meeting for the oppressed” in the Davis family home only to have Samuel refuse.
Not one to be held back in her fight for what she believed was right, Mary Davis aided Minister William T. Allan along with his wife Irene and friends Moses and Lucy Pettengill in organizing the first meeting for an abolitionist group at Main Street Presbyterian Church. The gathering was then promoted in the local newspaper for February 13, 1843. Once again, a hostile mob descended upon the gathering. And, to be clear, in a village of around 400 people, over 200 hit the streets in loud and violent opposition.
Samuel Davis, outraged at the scene he witnessed, wrote an account of the attempted meeting only to have the Register and North-Western Gazetteer, which he had previously sold, refuse to run the story. Many in the community had proclaimed that they would boycott any publication making mention of abolitionist meetings. As a result, Samuel Davis resigned as the paper’s editor. Within the year, Samuel Davis became a staunch abolitionist, and within 3 years, he was beaten publicly in the streets for these beliefs.
In July of 1843, the women of the group picked up where their husbands had left off and held the first meeting of the Peoria Female Anti-Slavery Society at Main Street Presbyterian Church. Minister Allan spoke to the 20 female attendees largely without incident other than his carriage wheels being stolen and tossed into the Illinois River.
This simple meeting was an important accomplishment. An abolitionist group had now successfully met in town and would now regularly organize and petition on behalf of black Americans, as well as raise funds for the reunification of black families separated by the evils of slavery.
Jared Grabb “I Am The Dust” (Middle America Version)
2C
I was an expectant father. I had no previous children, and the question that I was most commonly asked was, “Are you excited?” “Are you excited to be a father?” People don’t really expect you to have a clue what’s really going on in the day to day of the pregnancy, and people don’t really expect you to have plans for how to raise your child. Not as an expectant father. So, they ask, “Are you excited?” And, that was the question that I always got hung up on.
It’s like that morning nod of, “How are ya?” Most people just say “good” or maybe the occasional educated “well” and continue with their day. I, however, am the type of person that gets stranded in that question. Even if the one asking clearly just wants a quick “hello” or “good” or “well” in response, that’s not usually how I feel, and replying as such feels like a lie. The lie feels isolating. How can I expect those around me to share their vulnerabilities if I’m unwilling to share my own? So, I end up dishing out too much information and looking completely self-involved.
When people began asking me, “Are you excited?” I knew the correct answer was a resounding “Yes!” Of course that’s the correct answer, right? But, that’s not how I felt. I was terrified. Yes, I wanted a daughter. I had chosen to be a father. I had partnered with the love of my life and made her a mother. But, that child thing…
I was a touring musician. I was in the middle of recording an album. The baby didn’t even seem like a real person… more like a thing. And, a girl… I was born one of three boys. I didn’t know how to raise a girl. And, what if she didn’t like me? What if I couldn’t relate? Would I fail her?
We certainly weren’t financially prepared to have a child, but we also seemed to have no immediate path to becoming financially ready. Most of our lives outside of art were spent in food service work. In figuring what we needed monetarily to raise our child in Chicago, we found that we would need to go to one income instead of two, and that I would need to acquire two promotions. The advancement at work seemed possible, but it seemed possible in five to six years. So, put plainly, we didn’t have the money.
We didn’t have the time either, though. We were in our 30s. Studies have found that the risk of complications in a child’s development greatly increases if the parents conceive after 35 years of age. The clock was ticking, so we jumped in. Damn the finances, and damn our artistic endeavors.
On top of these stressors, pregnancy does a lot to change a woman’s physical make-up. I know all the tv shows just show a beautiful actress with a prosthetic belly while her limbs and hips remain untouched. Her face remains slender. But, that’s not how it works.
An expectant mother’s body transforms itself to serve a new purpose. I was unprepared. I hadn’t yet matured to find the beauty in this transformation.
And, my wife had a similar feeling. She can laugh now at that first baby bump photo that is barely noticeable. My newly aching, voluptuous wife was constantly exhausted and needed me to become more engaged in maintaining our home while having zero interest in intimacy and often sleeping on the living room couch to sooth her hips.
Life felt cold, hard, and incredibly lonely. Was this our future? Was this to be the rest of our lives from here on out? At the time, it felt uncertain.
Jared Grabb “Goddamn Blessed Man”
2D
All these expectations… We live in the age of social media, and just like the answer to the “excited” question, I knew how I was supposed to appear online with a newborn. Countless poetic peers have shared their stories of “love at first sight” when telling their birth stories, and I had a Valentine’s Day baby!
I did find beauty in the birth of my daughter, and I did share family photos after her birth. But, my feelings were more complicated, so I kept the captions short and direct: “Elizabeth and Dad.” “Elizabeth and Mom.” “Elizabeth and Grandma.” “Elizabeth and Grandpa.” …and so on.
I found most of the beauty of my daughter’s birth within my wife. I saw her relief, and I saw how she saw our daughter. I saw how she loved me for being on this journey with her and our new child.
The first couple of nights with our newborn were tense. Elizabeth’s vocal chords were still developing, and she made a little beeping sound every minute or so like a smoke alarm with a low battery. The nurses assured us this was nothing of concern, but our responsibility to care for a new human life was leaving us frightened and in shock. We weren’t able to sleep at all during the first night, until the staff took Elizabeth off for a quick bath and weighing.
In time, Elizabeth and I got to know each other. The mother holds most of the natural tools for early child care, so I mostly related to my daughter through diaper changes and baths. Laugh if you want, but those became our special shared moments. Her upbeat and curious personality began to show along with her acceptance of and love for me. And, sure, this is all before she could speak. But, it meant I wasn’t too broken. She liked me. We could relate.
And so, then it was real. I fell in love.
It also then hit me what that love meant. It was a love that I had never possessed before. The seeds of fear and shock from Elizabeth’s birth had bloomed into a full-fledged sense of duty to this little human. Elizabeth could not care for herself. She could not defend herself. She could not cloth herself, feed herself, or even burp without some assistance.
In the years that have followed, she has clearly acquired many of these skills, but I’m still responsible for her. I will be responsible for her for the rest of my life.
I can’t live for Elizabeth, and she can’t live for me.
However, I can and do fight for her, and to my surprise, this little girl fights for me.
Elizabeth has taught me how to love another life in equal to my own. Through her, and my wife, I’m learning to love the world in equal to the self.
Jared Grabb “Prison Bars” (Middle America Instrumental Version)