Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
Ebby’s family has lived in New England for over 150 years, in the best neighborhoods with generational wealth, a family foundation, philanthropy, and privilege. The horrific subtext is that all of this is not enough if you are black in America.
Ebby's (Ebony Freeman) life is about three tragedies. When she was ten, her older brother was murdered during a home invasion. Eighteen years later, Henry Pepper disappears on the day he was meant to marry Ebby. As traumatic as those two events were, the event that dominates the book is the accident that smashes Old Mo during the home invasion. Old Mo is a clay jar Moses, an enslaved potter, made and that Edward “Willis” Freeman, Ebby’s great-great-great-grandfather, took north on his daring escape to freedom.
Despite the Freeman resources, they are still Black. When the police don’t solve the home invasion and murder, the Freemans wonder if they would have if the victims were not Black. When Henry stands up Ebby on her wedding day, Ebby wonders how much her being Black and him being White has to do with that decision. The different Freeman generations argue about whether they should live in Black neighborhoods or White ones. Many of the small choices the Freemans make reflect their constant concern about their status as Black people in America. While the narrative is about Ebby, this prejudice is a constant, even with the wealth and status the Freemans enjoy.
But you could not tell a mother who had raised black children in the sixties and seventies, not even in their prosperous, quiet corner of New England, that her children would always be safe. You could not grow up to be a black man, no matter how successful, without knowing, in some quadrant of your brain, that you were more vulnerable to potential harm than other men. You had to watch your back. You had to teach your son to watch his back.In the end, the Freemans endow a museum exhibit about Old Mo. This is the story of our family, Baz once told her. And their mom, who’d overheard him, said, That’s true, Baz, but not only. Because our history is everyone’s history. Our history is American history. While this is a hopeful statement within the Freeman family, the book leaves the reader wondering whether White America agrees.
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