TTW: Loosed from Fear
(Originally posted Dec. 28, 2018)
Loosed from fear: Happy 127th birthday, Juanita Harrison (12/28/1891). Fearless woman, in 1927 at age 36 she began a 10 year travel around the world. She freelanced as a lady’s maid from France to Egypt to Syria to Spain; Japan, China, Russia and all the places in between. She embodied freedom. In a strange allegorical way her travels showed us how she, a domestic worker domesticated white supremacy with a passport and a tongue that spoke Southern Black sass, Spanish, French, and a little bit of German. .
Everything we know of her we know from her travel journal, a published work called “My Great, Wide, Beautiful World.” In one of the entries she said if she published her journal without any mistakes there would be nothing to publish. And lord knows she spelled by ear and used periods like they cost $1 each. But we have her story, her thoughts—in HER uneditable voice.
So think twice next time you think of excusing documenting the history that is your life because you “don’t write very well.” Think about Juanita and her 5th grade educated self taking trains through India and steamers to Egypt while the white women she worked for stayed home all day to be good wives. Think of her when you have the audacity to think you have limitations as a brown woman, when you think being brown closes you in when she displayed the dynamic cosmopolitanism of being Black, working hard, and being vehemently devoted to one’s dreams as a powerful combination. Think of her when you doubt if its worth keeping a journal when her own journal is still qualified to teach generations like scripture itself. This fearless woman traveled from 1927-1936 and you know what sorts of times those were for Black women—what’s stopping YOU from being the matriarch of generations, from leaving them an artefact in the form of your words? Teastained woman, loose from fear.
(Image via BlackThen. NOTE: This image popped up on my Google search and stunned me as it’s the first time I’ve “seen” Juanita. No one knows what Juanita looked like, but based on the description in her book this actually COULD be her... I’m NOT sure though...)
