Jane and Blyden Jackson

“Even if life stops, love goes on.” This quote of Bishop Steven Charleston’s has never been more real to me than this year, which has seen the posthumous publication by ANTIBOOKCLUB of my husband Blyden B. Jackson Jr’s final novel, For One Day of Freedom, completed before his death in April of 2012. The publication of this novel, which was passed over by mainstream publishers when we tried unsuccessfully to have it published while Blyden was still alive, is a testament to his commitment to the act and power of storytelling. And to paraphrase the publisher, Gabriel Levinson, it also speaks to mine and Blyden’s love “and to the endurance of goodwill over hate”.

In the thirty-eight years that we spent together I came to know of Blyden’s deep commitment to civil rights for all people and of his work in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s. Blyden was a civil rights activist who served as a founder of the New Haven, Connecticut, chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) before becoming a founding member and chairman of East River CORE—located in Harlem.  In this capacity he worked with Bayard Rustin, organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, on organizing the New York contingent to the march. Though he was just twenty-seven at the time of the March on Washington, he mentored younger civil rights workers who were active in CORE while he, in turn, was mentored by Rustin and the other towering leaders of the movement.

Blyden’s previous novels Operation Burning Candle and Totem were both published shortly before we met in New York City in 1974. As we raised our family together, I worked as a nurse midwife and Blyden continued writing while also pursuing his lifelong commitment to community activism in his adoptive home of Vermont in the 1980s and 1990s, beginning with his work with the Middlebury Volunteer Ambulance Association—first becoming an emergency medical technician, then the president of the association. He conducted fundraisers, including a capital campaign for a new building and ambulances. We worked together to raise funding for a needed new building for a Parent Child Center in Milton, Vermont. Blyden also directed the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf in Burlington, Vermont, and ran a successful capital campaign for the Food Shelf. 

In the late 1990s, Blyden started work on what he felt was the culmination of his writing efforts, For One Day of Freedom. He worked on it for several years, completing it in 2008. When he was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 our lives became focused on his health and well-being and after his passing the novel remained a cherished manuscript on my computer as a reminder of Blyden’s writing abilities and the countless hours he had devoted to it. Its power lies in his storytelling abilities, through which the horrific injustices of slavery and the stark contrasts between the life of slaves and the owners of plantations vividly come to life.

The following excerpt, describing the birthing experience of a slave, Mattie, and the plantation owner’s wife, Hanna, is an example of these stark contrasts.

“It had been a joyous night at the Big House when Mister Robb was born, in spite of the difficulty of the birth, which required both the plantation midwife and the next nearest neighbor’s midwife as well as the doctor to be in attendance while Hanna struggled for hours to deliver.

For Mattie there had been only the women in the slave quarters to help her deliver Jubel, and it was just their common lore and skill that kept her from bleeding to death.

Mattie had little time to mend after Jubel’s birth before she was assigned, her breasts heavy with milk, as Robb’s nursing mammy. Sent to the main house to care for newborn Robb, she barely had enough milk left when she was given the opportunity to be with Jubel, which was seldom more often than every other day. It was only because Jubel was being passed between herself and two other nursing slave mothers that he received adequate nourishment.”

When it became amazingly clear that Blyden’s novel was going to finally be available in print, I asked a dear friend, Brandyn Adeo, to write an Afterword for it, in which he takes this powerful story that occurs in 1850 up to the present moment. These words from the Afterward point us to a vision for the future that I know Blyden would also embrace:

“In Jackson’s world, the hegemonic nature of white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy is neither an inevitability nor our destiny. Just as Jackson exposes the evils of systemic racism and white supremacy, he also discloses what Ross Gay refers to as “structural tenderness” across lines of race, class, and gender. Just as Jackson introduces us to the intricate hierarchy of plantation life, in the very next moment he introduces the subtleties of the Underground Railroad and everyday acts of resistance. Just as Jackson invites us into the trauma of enslaved peoples with his descriptions of backbreaking work compelled by the whip and other torture devices, he also invites us to bear witness to counter-narratives of liberation and mutual aid.

For One Day of Freedom reminds us why it is so important that we revisit our stories. It is through stories like this that we are able to get in touch with the grief and (generational) trauma, as well as the joys and triumphs, that live inside our bodies; without these stories we remain strangers to ourselves. And it is through the telling and retelling of these stories that we can break the generational curses, release the hurt, and make it make sense. In this vein, For One Day of Freedom is Jackson’s invitation to re-member ourselves.”

The fact that Blyden’s last work is at long last available as a part of the cultural conversation, is a reminder to me of low love does indeed go on, and of the ability of the written word to reach across time and space.

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For more inspiration, join a circle this Sunday with Jane Jackson, publisher Gabriel Levinson of ANTIBOOK CLUB and Brandyn Adeo, who wrote the book's afterword. More details and RSVP info here.