CELEBRATING the release of YOU MAY PLOW HERE 2023 edition with photographs
5 MARCH 2024 TUESDAY
4:00pm reception and book signing
4:30-5:30pm reading and discussion
Museum of Authenticity Annex
119-B E 1st Street
thordis@museumofauthenticity.org / 303.585.1783
Edited by Thordis Simonsen and first published by W.W. Norton in 1986, YOU MAY PLOW HERE: The Narrative of Sara Brooks is an intimate and singular account, vividly told by an African American woman who was born in 1911 in Alabama’s Black Belt and raised along with seventeen additional dependents on the 53 1/3-acre farm her father worked steadfastly to own and keep. Sara Brooks eventually joined the great migration North where, setting hope and determination against hardship, she ultimately achieved homeownership herself. YMPH fills a gap in African American history—we seldom hear about land-owning Blacks from that era, and an account by a woman is rare.
The new edition of YMPH includes thirty-three duotone, black-and-white photographs of vestiges of the mule farming way of life in Sara Brooks’ Alabama home county and surrounding counties. Made in the 1970s by Thordis Simonsen, these images of people and place give a face to Sara Brooks’ vivid testimonial and help place it in a broader historical and cultural context.
published by The Fundamental Note in cooperation with the Museum of Authenticity / museumofauthenticity.org / thordis @museumofauthenticity.org / 303.585.1783
books available at the event; $43.46 includes tax; cash or check
Please see 13 OCTOBER 2023 post for more information. THANK YOU.