Karen Brown
she/her
Karen is a librarian, historian and genealogist, and activist who lives in Monterey, California. She has worked with Native Americans to provide library services on reservations and in urban areas, taught mostly Ojibwe people at the University of North Dakota and organized to obtain an apology proclamation from her city for past treatment of Ohlone people. She is a member of Whites for Racial Equity and Off the Charts genealogy group. She has volunteered for ten years with the Village Project’s Black after school program. The principles of Unitarian Universalism are part of her anti-racism work.
Artist statement: This poem describes the way my interest in historical and genealogical research informs my deep commitment to anti-racism action, including my support of Reparation Generation. I share this poem as often as I can. I’m pleased to find that, especially when I read it aloud, the experience it describes can impact other’s lives too.
I thought I was safe.
Most ancestors late arrivals,
Only early ancestors from the north
and poor, too poor,
to own a slave.
Then a shock, new discovery,
early settler,
new great grandfather
eight generations back
in his will,1696, wrote –
cattle, sheep, feather bed,
and Peter,
and
old Negro Case,
and
(nameless)
boy,
and
old Negro man and woman.
and
Indian servant.
His son gave possessions
to his family and so to me:
oxen, cow, horse,
negro girl Jessie,
negro boy Pero
Cuffe,
Jude,
Pompo,
Betty,
The wills are blurry,
messy fountain pen
blotting out pieces of the past,
but ink cannot be erased.
Each name searing,
branded into my brain.
I have not escaped
the black splotches
of shame.
Stunned.
Heart pounding
skin burning.
Eyes closing to images of horror
Opening to my inheritance.
Never thought myself superior
to those whose families had been enslaved,
but surely better than those who
bought and sold
people.
Seeing more clearly the chains that bind us together,
my mind tries to make an escape plan,
but it seems
that I (too) will never be free
of this knowledge
a curtain shading my eyes
coloring my world.
I can’t work my way out,
buy my way out
either.
I found a Bourne,
(past version of Brown)
George,
(my own great grandfather’s name)
founded an abolitionist society in 1833
ancestor of the heart, at least,
I rush to open the family door
and welcome him in.
Read his books, speeches, letters
call him kin
share a long embrace.
And definitely in my family tree,
Patience,
distant Vermont cousin,
worked to end slavery,
Patience, old-fashioned name
not inherited by me.
Instead mine from Katarina,
“one who sees and gets the job done”
Yes, I now see
Slavery as my problem,
my long-held wish
(for the time when this legacy sleeps
unlinked to modern problems,
only ancient history,
too far back to matter)
now becomes a resolution.
My job.
Get it done
