“Sojourning is a daring act of freedom-making and . . . an acknowledgment of reclamation of spaces where Black women and femme folks were historically excluded.”

I’m in Edenton, North Carolina. I’m here to do some sacred work. I slowly turn the bowl of white rose petals in my hands. They are moist from freshly fallen tears after hearing Lois Deloatch sing “It Is Well with My Soul.” That was my Nana’s favorite song, and it still broke me to hear it. It was approaching the two-year anniversary of Nana’s death and her entering the ancestral realm. I turn the bowl again and look out at the water next to Molly Horniblow’s resting place. Horniblow hid her granddaughter Harriet Jacobs in her attic for nearly seven years to protect her from the oppressions of slavery. Harriet Ann Jacobs was a freedom fighter, writer, and businesswoman and the author of the exceptional and heart-wrenching autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). There’s something special about a grandmother’s love and protection. Hot tears fell as our grandmothers’ loves overlapped.