How Black Horror Became America’s Most Powerful Cinematic Genre

Similarly, tales of magic that portray Black figures with magic to transform and strengthen or weaken others can serve as both fascinating tales and powerful allegories about how older African belief systems could theoretically “overcome” the horrors of America’s white supremacist. systems. The men and women who knew ancient African magic and could cast it, or goopher as it is sometimes called, could be called men and women, slaves who secretly practiced their enchanting roots, or freemen or escapees living in isolated areas available to them. some protection from curious white plantation owners or simply Black Americans who keep the tradition alive to this day. The magical systems evoked in much of this folklore, such as the Obeah, have their roots in African religious and spiritual practices. Their spells can change people and things, bring good or bad luck, heal or hurt, and even protect from danger. In such stories you may come across a soucouyant, a witch woman who changes her skin to find children’s blood to drink and flies through the night in flames, and can only be stopped by pouring rice or salt into her. or she rubs salt or pepper on her molten skin, ensuring she’s gone at dawn. Likewise, you may encounter feathers, phantasmagoric flaming skulls, duppies, lycanthropic lups-garous, and more. At their core, most of these stories are about survival. And because white slaveholders rarely seemed to understand the language or practices of the obeah, Voodoo, and other African traditions, sorcerer men and women quickly became icons of destruction, as were Black figures, sorcerers, who had the ability to bring whites to their knees. Sapphira Wade, the woman in Gloria Naylor’s novel “Mother’s Day” (1988), his legendary magic overpowers a slave owner. If knowledge of these ancient arts represented a power that the white colonists could not understand, then keeping these memories alive was a way of preserving them. yourself Alive: folklore as fortress, memory as magic. The stories were enchanted, serving as warnings to live mindfully, always aware of the fact that scary things—whether evil spirits or white slaveholders—could have their eyes on you.

Of course, there was another reason for telling some of these stories: to summon possibly the most remarkable ghost, freedom. Perhaps the best-known stories in this African-American folkloric tradition are about flying. “Once all Africans were able to fly like birds,” begins one version, quoted by a man named Caesar Grant of Johns Island, SC to author John Bennett, “but because of their many transgressions their wings were taken away.” All people from Africa, including slaves brought to America, can still soar through the sky if they remember the magic words that the white colonists found incomprehensible. Sing them as the slaves in the story do, and you will be lifted into the clouds, freed from the troubles of the world. Here, hope has indeed become the winged thing. Do not forget, the message looks like, and you can be free too.