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Caribbean Life, Mar. 31-Apr. 6, 2022
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
You are not confined to your
chair.
If you want to get up and move
around, in fact, you can. Stand up,
stretch, wiggle your toes, shake
out the knots. Step out and drop
in on the space next door or down
the street and it’s okay. You’re not
stuck in your chair or this room
or even this building, and in “To
Walk About in Freedom” by Carole
Emberton, you’ll get a new
appreciation for that ability.
In 1935, at the end of the
Depression, the Federal Writers’
One Step at a Time…
Project (FWP) was created to put
unemployed teachers, writers, and
editors to work, in part by gathering
oral histories, with the goal
to establish a uniquely American
story. Over an eight-year period,
FWP workers collected 10,000
interviews, including stories from
the Emancipation.
Priscilla Joyner’s was one of
them.
She was eighty years old when
two FWP workers, both of them
Black, came to interview her
about her life. Eager to see them,
she was waiting for them on the
porch of the home she’d lived
in for decades. She was ready to
talk…
Joyner was born in January of
1858, the child of a white mother
and a Black father – or so she was
told. She never knew for sure; the
white man who gave her his name
did so reluctantly. Her Black birth
father’s identity was something
her mother took to her grave but
Emberton says there were other
possibilities to explain how Joyner
was different than her white siblings
and why they were allowed
to torment her.
Though she was not a slave in
the strictest sense, Joyner lived
as one: she was taught domestic
tasks but not how to read or
write until she was twelve and
her mother sent her to live with
a Black family, who sent Joyner to
school. The move was “upsetting,”
and she didn’t understand it but
it turned out to be what Joyner
needed.
She learned to love her new
home. There, she met her husband
and found community…
There’s no other way to say this:
“To Walk About in Freedom” is an
exceptional book.
On every page, in every single
story, author Carole Emberton
leads readers to learn something
they didn’t know or to meet someone
new, and it’s done between
the facts of history and social
mores, presented concurrently
with Priscilla Joyner’s story. But
Joyner’s life isn’t the only one
shared here; other FWP interviewees
and former slaves’ words are
added to the overall, which lends
further richness to what you’ll
read. Emberton then explains how
some FWP interviews were nearly
ruined by over-editing and “Uncle
Remus” additions made by white
writers and editors who insisted
on it, and how Joyner’s full story
was almost lost.
This is one of those books that’ll
make you lose track of time and
your surroundings. lt’ll answer
questions, raise your pride, and
it’ll make your head spin for days
after you’re done reading it. “To
Walk About in Freedom” is the
book you need to keep you in your
chair.
“To Walk About in Freedom:
The Long Emancipation
of Priscilla Joyner” by
Carole Emberton
c.2022, W.W. Norton
$28.95
242 pages
Book cover of “To walk About In Freedom” by Carole Emberton.
‘To Walk About in Freedom’ author, Carole Emberton. Deanna
Kroll-Haeick
B’klyn man slapped by Oscar-winning actor on national TV
By Stephen Witt
It was the slap heard ‘round
the world.
Legendary Brooklyn comedian
Chris Rock was slapped hard
across the face by out-of-control
actor Will Smith on Sunday
night during the internationally
televised Academy Awards show
awarding Oscars for the top movies
of 2021.
The incident occurred after
Rock made a joke about Smith’s
actress wife Jada Pinkett Smith,
who recently shaved her head and
has been open about her struggle
with alopecia, which causes
hair loss.
“Jada, I love you, ‘G.I. Jane 2,’
can’t wait to see it,” Rock said
on stage. This caused Smith to
swiftly walk up to Rock on stage
and assault him with a hard slap
to the face.
“Keep my wife’s name out of
your f–king mouth,” Smith shouted
repeatedly after exiting the
stage. Though that remark was
censored during ABC’s live broadcast
of The Oscars, unedited footage
of the incident, recorded in
other countries, made the social
media rounds afterward.
Rock, a veteran stand-up comedian,
responded with a joke that
Will Smith just slapped the s–t
out of him, and was the most historical
thing that ever happened
on television.
While Rock stood alone after
the assault, several actors came
over to console Smith, the perpetrator.
However, local New
York City comedians came to the
defense of Rock.
“It really shows how thankless
standup comedy is as an art
form. To physically assault somebody
while they are doing their
job,” said one comedian who performs
regularly at the Cellar in
Greenwich Village. “I mean, you
guys Hollywood never honors
comedians or comedies during
the Academy Awards. They never
nominated Jim Carry for all the
great comedies he did. Comedians
are always doing movies, funny
movies, great movies, but they
don’t honor us. So it the Academy
Awards is specifically for the
bougie dramatic actors. And then
what they do is they have comedians
come in between giving out
the awards to kind of living the
night up.”