Black Mothers Manifesting the Resistance!

🖤 Manifesting Out Loud: A Reflection from A Mother’s Cry

Black mothers carry a weight heavier than most can imagine—a weight passed down through generations, carved into our DNA by centuries of survival.

Our ancestors were queens and warriors, leaders and lovers, nurturers and defenders. But in the brutal disruption of slavery, they were forcibly transformed into slaves, breeders, and broken-hearted protectors of children they could not save.

To shield their babies from the wrath of the slave master—molestation, violence, separation—these mothers were forced to downplay the brilliance, strength, and promise of their children. If a child was “too smart,” “too beautiful,” or “too strong,” they became a target. So, many mothers learned to hide the light in their child to keep them alive. And when they couldn't stop the inevitable—when children were sold, raped, or beaten—the weight of powerlessness turned into generations of shame and guilt.

Today, that same inherited guilt shows up in Black mothers who are grieving incarcerated children. Society often blames us, shames us, and silences us. But A Mother’s Cry is choosing a different legacy. We are reclaiming our voices, restoring our power, and manifesting out loud. We will not be shamed into silence. We will not be hidden in the shadows of injustice.

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💭 Historical Check: Eastern Shore Slave Breeding

Maryland's Eastern Shore has been historically documented as a hub of the domestic slave trade, particularly in the breeding and selling of enslaved people. While it's difficult to statistically say it bred "more slaves than any other state," Maryland was one of the largest slaveholding states in the Upper South and profited heavily from the interstate slave trade—especially after the transatlantic trade was banned in 1808.

Key points:

• Slave breeding was a real, horrific practice, especially in border states like Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. Enslaved women were often forced to bear children to increase the slave owner's wealth.

• Maryland’s Eastern Shore, with its proximity to major ports and its entrenched plantation system, was deeply involved in this practice.

• After tobacco declined, many Maryland enslavers profited by selling enslaved people southward to states like Mississippi and Louisiana.

Maryland’s Eastern Shore played a significant role in America’s slave breeding economy. That generational trauma remains embedded in the soil and the spirit of that region—and in the bodies of its descendants.

These words remind us that history doesn't disappear - it mutates. The guilt felt by today's mothers of incarcerated children, you and adult, is not born of failure. It's a residue of forced silence, of systems designed to break generational brilliance. But A Mother's Cry will not be silent. We manifest out loud. We reclaim the truth.

Jamesina Greene, A Mother's Cry