Grand Marronage

Poetry. African & African American Studies. Women's Studies. In Louisiana and other parts of the American South, the Caribbean, and South America, escaped African and Native peoples formed "maroon communities" deep in swamps and mountains. Historians refer to the permanent establishment of these free settlements as "grand marronage." Similarly, Creole communities in New Orleans resisted Jim Crow--but at whose expense? This book examines the lives of New Orleans' Creole women of color, told through multiple generations. The women of GRAND MARRONAGE find ways to diminish the impacts of racism and sexism, but not without cost. What must be given up for safety? How is the chain of familial trauma broken? What does inclusive liberation demand from us? The unspoken--in both family history and the historical record--is given breath in this multigenerational lyric. GRAND MARRONAGE is a map of the spiritual maroon community created by Creole foremothers, and a beginning of the work still to be done for this marronage to be complete.