Today the historic preservation community and I are brokenhearted for Lynette Tanner and the Natchez, Mississippi, community after hearing about a fire destroying her 204-year-old Ferriday, Louisiana home, Frogmore Plantation.
I've only visited this site once, but was blown away by the example of a complete plantation community it was with home, cotton gin, church house, slave quarters, cotton fields and such. As painful as our southern history has been, it's also real. Frogmore Plantation stood to educate current and future generations about the lives of past generations, because the way I see it, we only have 2 choices.... learn from the past and create a better future or rewrite it and learn nothing.
Lynette researched and published a book Chained to the Land, recounting Louisiana slave narratives that I found fascinating and recommend everyone should read; personal accounts of former enslaved people regarding their experiences while enslaved. It will truly open your eyes to seeing a sample of the diversified and wide-ranging personal experiences told from people who were there and lived it and how different their accounts are from whatever stereotype you may embrace.
Sending hugs and healing thoughts to all my friends and acquaintances in the Natchez community, especially the Tanner family, for their loss.
Photo Credit: Sabrina Robertson/The Natchez Democrat via AP
