the people could fly by virginia hamilton

I believe that these stories of flight are rooted in truth. Flight became a secret language for runaway slaves, and it continues to represent black mobility toward liberation. Simon’s Island, in Georgia, where enslaved people brought from Nigeria revolted and walked together into the marshy waters, rather than be sold into slavery-these stories became both a truth that enabled survival and an oral archive of resistance. Rooted in the history of Igbo Landing-a site on St. While this myth has evolved over the years, it continues to be the source of imagination that depicts freedom, new futures, and returning to Africa. The story of flying Africans has been passed down from generation to generation since slavery-a secret, suppressed gift of our ancestors. In the above video, “Dreaming Gave Us Wings,” I explore the legend of flying Africans-a story, existing on the edge of dream and memory, about enslaved Africans who could lift up and fly home. Whether these archives have been erased or misplaced, I reconstruct what has been lost by excavating and interrogating oral histories. There are stories the ancestors have buried, and I feel them scratching their way to the surface. The Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded annually by the American Library Association as part of the Coretta Scott King Awards.Flight became a secret language for runaway slaves, and it continues to represent black mobility toward liberation.Īs an experimental documentarian, I reimagine the function of archives for black women. She received a National Book Award, a Newbury Medal, and MacArthur Fellowship, the first author of children’s books to do so.

Hamilton wrote dozens of books for children and young adults. Way above the plantation, way over the slavery land.

Suffering as slaves on a plantation, the people are reminded of their ability to fly and so fly away: “They went so high. They were unable to take their wings with them on the slave ships to America. The People Could Fly tells the story of how some people in Africa knew magic and were able to fly with black wings.

The People Could Fly: The Picture Book(2004) illustrates the title story from Virginia Hamilton’s collection The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales (1985).

The people could fly by virginia hamilton