By Line search: By TOLLEY M. JONES
By TOLLEY M. JONES
This morning I stood in front of my altar and lit its candles, held a stub of palo santo to the sputtering flame, and even before I spoke I felt the tingling and buzzing in my shoulders and arms that let me know The Ancestors were already there...
By TOLLEY M. JONES
Oppressive regimes, governments, religions and family systems rely on silence to fester and thrive. Their weak and parasitic exoskeleton depends on a steady supply of hapless victims who either helplessly, unknowingly, or willingly remain within the...
By TOLLEY M. JONES
A year ago, my dearest friend Kirsten’s life abruptly and shockingly ended. A year ago she came into my car as I drove in terror to her house, to say goodbye to me when I was not ready, nor prepared, to say goodbye to her. A year ago this week, we...
By TOLLEY M. JONES
The other day I was in my office working on a grant report with my door closed, when suddenly loud and joyous laughter exploded in the hallway. My fellow brown female coworkers were laughing the way brown women laugh when they are surrounded by other...
By TOLLEY M. JONES
My grandmother Esther died on Nov. 17 at the age of 95. Grandma had five children: Charles, Patricia, Michael, David, and Valerie. Tragically, she buried four of her five children as adults — one of whom was murdered, along with that adult child’s...
By TOLLEY M. JONES
Since my friend Kirsten suddenly died in June, grief is the cadence to every song I listen to or sing — happy, or sad, or pensive. It is the concrete that encases my feet as I slog through each and every step I take.It is like the smell of autumn,...
By TOLLEY M. JONES
How long was it before you, as a child, saw someone who looked like you on television or in a movie, or read a book with a protagonist who looked like you? If you are white, it was probably so long ago that you don’t even remember, and it was probably...
By TOLLEY M. JONES
My little brother is a tall, Black man who has a penchant for wearing all black, including a signature mysterious-looking black fedora, but he was a timid, gentle kid. Once when our entire neighborhood of kids saw a single lost sunfish wandering...
By TOLLEY M. JONES
“What upon Earth is the matter with the American people? Do they really covet the world’s ridicule as well as their own social and political ruin?” — Frederick DouglassI am still so tired.I am tired of having so many upsetting and horrible things...
By TOLLEY M. JONES
One recent blustery February afternoon, my partner and I took a walk through the Common Burying Ground in Newport, Rhode Island. Established in 1640, it contains 31 acres of Colonial headstones.We walked, leaning into the sharp ocean gusts that...
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