BLK South Feature with Candice Benbow
Transcript of Instagram Feature by Candice Benbow:
Though I was born and raised in the South, I'm technically part of the New Great Migration. According to the Brookings Institute, the South accounted for 94% of the nation's Black population growth during the prime pandemic year of July 2020 - July 2021.
I moved to Atlanta in October 2020.
After a painful season, I needed to be grounded again in what rooted me.
I needed hot summer days with sweet tea and nights that reminded me of catching lightning bugs in mason jars with my cousins.
I needed the institution of Friday night high school football, where rivalries bring the city out and a post-gram ride around town brings back memories.
I needed to hear the twang and drawl in voices as strangers email and say hello, while holding doors open.
I needed churches with gravel parking lots and temperamental AC units.
I needed home.
So many of us need it.
Why do you think we're all coming back?
In a world that hates Black flesh, the South is a constant reminder that we are loved beyond what we could ever comprehend.
That our ancestors dared to survive -- and thrive -- in this place love is unconditional.
Their love is our inheritance.
Southern living is our birthright.
Their love is our inheritance.
Southern living is our birthright.
There is a holiness here.
Southern sacredness is in the texture of the grass, the song of the wind, the hue of the clay. In the whistles of the rivers, the latkes and the streams.
And it has been calling us.
It has been calling us to use our greatness to build it up to the best of what it can be.
To refuse to let the worst of yesterday dictate tomorrow's possibility.
It has been calling us to come back so that we all can move forward together.
BLK South is an organization that always heard the call and is dedicated to moving the Black story in the South forward, through community development and organizing.
And they need your help.
Follow: @blksouth
Support: blksouth.org/donate
For BLK South, for Erin, for Kendall, and for all of us who have made the South our home:
As the sun beams on our faces and with the wind at our backs, may we build upon the richness of the legacies we inherited to ensure this place is the haven and refuge for future generations that it is to us.
Amen and Asé.
Candice Benbow
Candice Benbow is a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina and a graduate of Tennessee State University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Africana Studies (2005). She also holds a Master of Arts in Sociology from North Carolina Central University (2009) and a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School (2015). Currently, she is a Lecturer in Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. In 2015, Candice created "Red Lip Theology", a movement to encourage young Black women to embrace their whole selves as good creation. Through “Red Lip Theology”, she merges theological ideals with beauty industry participation to celebrate Black women’s creativity and spirituality. Candice’s research interest lie at the intersections of Black feminist theory, womanist theology and Black female sexuality.
