Join us in reading All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles.
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language.
Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States. All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds. It honors the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today.
This event takes at the ZMA in the 1st Floor ZMA Longaberger Research Library.
A limited number of copies are available to borrow from the ZMA. Please contact education coordinator Misty Johnson to check availability at education@zanesvilleart.org.
Thursday, March 28, 6–7 pm, at the ZMA. Free and open to the public. Register by March 27, 2024.
