Where I’m From

The Wesley A.M.E. Church in Swarthmore held its annual Black History Tea on Saturday, February 29. There was food, singing, prayer, poetry, dancing, and a fashion show featuring African clothing. The tea was in part a fundraiser for the small, Bowdoin Avenue church, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2021. As part of the program, Jeannine Osayande read her poem, “Where I’m From,” which describes her experience growing up in the historically black neighborhood of Swarthmore, where the church is located.

Jeannine Osayande of Swarthmore reads her poem about growing up in the historically black neighborhood of Swarthmore. Photo: Carl McKenzie

I am from black cast iron pans, from the ancestor table in my childhood home where I raised my family, next in line, from Malian bogolan mud cloth and indigo fabrics given to me in grace from my mentor Sandy Sparrow-Wilkinson, who believed in me when I did not, and crowned me a genius. 

I am from The Great Migration, The Historically Black Neighborhood of Swarthmore, with family roots seven generations strong. 

I am from spontaneous porch parties, hydrangea felt legacies. I’m from nosey, pullback- the-curtain, peak-out-the-window folks, who look-out-for-all. 

I am from Making a Homeplace, “we don’t survive we thrive,” from the segregated neighborhood of Swarthmore now desegregated, historically-black-now-gentrified neighborhood of Swarthmore. 

I am from the maids, chefs, gardeners, carriage drivers and nannies of Swarthmore’s White folks. Folks who couldn’t live the American dream without Black folks serving as scaffolders for White folks success and well-being. 

I am from the stars. 

I am from the McKorkle cabins in the mountains, summer ferry boat rides to AC piled tight into a big green station wagon, looking backwards, moving forward, Atlantic City Chicken Bone Beach bound. 

I am from the smell of fresh cut springtime, dandelion green grass. I am from Brighton Ave block parties and the neighborhood where you betta not hang your clothes on the clothesline on Sundays. 

I am from twenty-five-cent basement parties dancing to James Brown hair-go-back Soul Train git down boogie down beats. 

From sitting underneath the old folks ear hustling and collecting precious stories like collecting fireflies in the summertime twilight, and from, when you see an elder in the neighborhood, speak first and recognize. I’m from a beautiful Quaker community where the Lenni Lenape Nation were ripped from their land. 

I’m from Amens, hallelujahs and the Swarthmore Wesley AME Church folks. 

I am from descendants who frequented Jones Hall, a sanctuary for the town Blacks, now flattened to a foundation then rebuilt — holding long ago memories of black social groups, sports teams, religious gatherings and one of the Borough’s first black families, the Jones family. 

I’m from the Historically Black Neighborhood of Swarthmore, from eat your black eyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck. I’m not from Scrapple One Hundred or “that part of town.” 

I am from Donald Lee, the first Black Police Chief of Swarthmore and Betty Ann Wilson, activist, educator and first Black council woman of Swarthmore in the1990s. 

The ancestor table at Wesley A.M.E. Church’s Black History Tea on February 29. Photo: Rachel Pastan

I am from my namesake, Great Aunt Rachel Warren, who graduated with a chemistry degree from the first class of scholars at Delaware State College in 1925. 

I am from Diasporic African drum and dance traditions, The Art of Black Dance and Music, from African dance teachers who held me up and believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. 

I am from the movements that make the dance, the beats that make the drum, the heart that is the home, the heat crackling smell of wood, the taste of Nana’s delicious hot bubbling cinnamon apple pie, with a perfect crust. 

I am from the dreams and hopes of my ancestors, crisp moonlit nights, sun rich days, clouds, thunder, lightning, rain and the taste of wet earth. 

Author’s note: This poem was based on a template created by Beth Antonelli, a high school English teacher in the Bronx, New York, and created for a Columbia University Teachers College Teaching Artist identity assignment in November 2018.