The Tree That Brought Me Back Home

Dedicated to Luella Doris Sabb Seele and John P. Perry 

“We must have land. If we have no land, we are at the mercy of those who do."

Richard Harvey Cain

Over a century and a half later, I say let us all redeem what our ancestors built, what our ancestors lost, and what our ancestors have yet to see.

I will never forget what an elder shared with me at one of the first vigils I attended for youth violence in the community. He told me this wasn't anything like Black Lives Matter. He said that if I was serious about actually helping rebuild Black communities, I would sadly attend many more of these. Each one would hurt a little more, until I became some form of numb. Hopeful always, even in hopeless situations.

Years later, I remain steadfast in the fight, thankful for those we've been able to save and honoring through my work those we couldn't. But when word reached me about what happened to four year old Javeyah Harris, an innocent Black princess whose life was taken by her own parents in the most gruesome way, this was not one I could simply set aside and continue the mission. It stayed with me.

That morning, I gathered supplies to plant a tree in the Richard Cain Community Garden in Lincolnville. I was humbled and grateful that Dr. Seele had granted us permission to establish this landmark, not only for Javeyah, but for the battle we commit to every day: restoring hope and endurance for our youth.

My heart couldn't hold any more Black death, any more crying mothers. So the ancestors told me to place it in the ground with them. Let them carry what I can't bear, so my shoulders can carry the work. Let there be refuge there for the people, should they ever need it.

Little did I know where, or even why, this crape myrtle was putting down its roots that day, or why this place had been chosen. Time would reveal it, as it always does. Our plans are not always our own. Everything carries a deeper meaning. Everything answers a greater purpose.

I arrived at the garden about two hours before the tree planting ceremony was set to begin, walking the grounds again to get a feel for where she would go. With a little time to spare, I wandered over to the polytunnel to see what was growing inside. Out front stood a small wooden display, telling its own story. The project was named after a teenage girl who had built it with her Girl Scout troop, their contribution to a garden that was still thriving years later.

I looked closer at the photo, and something stopped me. I recognized the young lady. I recognized her mother. And I recognized her grandmother.

That grandmother was my auntie.

Me and this young lady share the same great grandmother. I had no idea anyone in my family had ever set foot in this garden, let alone left something behind in it.

I called Dr. Seele right then to tell her what I'd found. She lit up before I even finished, confirming that she and my auntie were good friends. She filled in the rest of the story behind the polytunnel herself.

Something had already been planted here long before I arrived with a shovel.

I found a small plot, far enough from the bigger trees for her to spread her own wings, sitting in open sunlight with just enough shade to shelter her. I grabbed the shovel and started to dig.

About halfway through, my auntie showed up.

During the ceremony, we called out the names of the seven founders of Lincolnville: Richard Harvey Cain, Daniel Adger, Marc Buffett, Rev. Lewis Ruffin Nichols, Hector Grant, Rev. M.B. Salters, and Walter Steele. Together, they purchased 620 acres to establish this town. It was our way of paying homage. By then, the tree's roots were already in the soil as a young brother covered the base with fresh wood mulch.

That evening, my inquisitive mind took me digging through history. This kind of history isn't taught in our schools. The Black men and women who built institutions, communities, and infrastructure are too often overlooked, their stories muzzled. That absence has shaped a mindset in our people that things like this are not possible, or never even happened.

The resilience to establish our own is contagious. It makes believers. It challenges us to think, not if, but how.

Whether by luck or by the ancestors, the owner of the garden happened to be coming into town and offered to take me on a tour. That only pushed me to dig deeper, to come prepared with real questions. I felt like a missing character finding a trail back to my own story, the kind of feeling that moves not just by emotion, but by intention.

As the sun began to set, cooling the day's intense heat, we met at the garden. Standing in a single spot, simply by pointing, she unfolded our historical inheritance, not from a book, but from memory. She traced connections to Charleston icons, the Civil War, state politics, and neighborhood heroes. Men and women who donated land, built schools, and sacrificed for a future they would never fully see. They have no statues. Few landmarks bear their names. Their contributions are remembered by the ancestors, while the world speaks of them only in whispers.

The pride of this town came not only from her, but from her bloodline, as she shared with me her mother's master's thesis, completed at Atlanta University, later Clark Atlanta University, a foundation of Black self sufficiency in its own right. Sharing it not only showed me where I could find more information, it showed me that someone had already done their part to make sure this history would never be forgotten.

The tour ended at the historic Wesley Methodist Church, built in 1887, before tractors and excavators. An elder church mother, dressed in her Sunday best, walked down the gravel path as singing and drums echoed through the church doors. She reminded me of my own great grandmother getting ready for Sunday service. No huge sanctuary. No large theater halls. Just a small one room church. I write about these memories in case the youth today never get the opportunity to experience them, and if you do, cherish them. It was never about the church. It was about community.

I thanked her for sharing this priceless knowledge and retired for the night, my thoughts moving like chanting voices. In just a few hours, it felt as though I had walked through the town in 1867, traveling through the first city jail, the farms, the schoolhouses, and the cemeteries.

Then came the cemetery.

Some graves rested in the public cemetery, others in the swampland. Almost mystic, not magic. Mist rising from the earth, Spanish moss hanging with age like a Union soldier's beard. The opportunity to pause the tour and walk through it was an experience my pen could never fully put into words. I found myself searching for the oldest birth dates and the youngest years. Children were here. Young adults were here. People younger than me were here. Flags marked the graves of Union soldiers who not only helped build this town, but this nation. Prince Hall Masonic emblems were engraved on weathered tombstones. I was standing in a place that had never been gentrified, surrounded by a thousand stories.

I whispered a small chant, walking carefully between the stones.

Ancestors, speak to me.I know you hear me, speak.Ancestors, speak to me.

The voices of young Black women calling children to the dinner table. A pastor's preaching cadence echoing through the air. Children were laughing as they ran to the store. Mixed with weeping, sorrow, anguish, and war cries. It filled not only my ears, but my mind.

I prepared my materials to study Mrs. Luella Seele's thesis. Though her purpose may have been to complete her master's degree, powerful moments are often born from small, sincere efforts.

The details of her documentation showed me, personally, what it actually took to build a self sustaining Black community. She recorded how many schools there were, how many students were taught within them, and what scholars, inventors, business owners, and community leaders emerged from the town's collective effort. She documented what they contributed back and the spirit in which they gave it.

She also preserved the lineage of leadership that served the town, with some mayors and clerks dedicating two and three terms to the cause.

Beyond the founders, she valued the common people. She intentionally named the pioneer families who chose to make Lincolnville home. Some traveled from across the country. Others had already sacrificed in war and settled here to live a new freedom. Others were local families who simply wanted to be free among ourselves. There were twenty one names on that list. I went down the line searching for anything familiar.

Never would I have imagined that when I came across the name John P. Perry, I was looking at a name already living in my own bloodline. The name of my great grandmother, the same woman I remembered wearing those beautiful dresses to church, was tied to that very line. The tree wasn't the only thing whose roots were planted in Lincolnville. So were mine, through my great great great grandfather.

As my family shared stories and we connected the pieces, it all began to make sense. It explained why I spent so much time visiting my granny at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. It explained why I cried so deeply as a third grader when she passed away. It was never about the tree. The tree was simply calling me home.

Every time I return to Lincolnville, I check on the tree. One day it will cast shade I will never sit beneath. Children I will never meet will walk past it without knowing why it is there. And that's alright.

As long as we, and the generations after us, continue investing in the tree, there remains an opportunity. An opportunity to buy back and reclaim land, to build businesses rooted in both economic and ancestral wealth, to place the monuments we often wish existed in a place where they can truly be honored, and to set our stake in the ground the same way our ancestors did in 1867. We can make Lincolnville into everything we dream of because it has already been done once before.

Take charge.

May the ancestors guide and protect you always.