How to Build an Altar for the Living

An homage to Black lineage, Black legacy, Black oral histories and Black mortality.

Audio (begins at 11 seconds): Voice of my 101 year old great-grandmother, Jessie Sampleton-Mayberry

Music: "I Believe" (feat. John P. Kee) by The New Life Community Choir
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AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION:

Both: (laughing)

Jessie Mayberry: …Yeah it did! It come from wild stuff like that out in the country….just–just our folks–it’s what you had to do–we learned to do it all by ourselves. And then, we used to make our own chewing gum–it was trees that grow out in the country, were called wax trees…you might of studied about some of them…I don’t know, they may not study that no more. They call ‘em wax trees.

They had bark on ‘em like the rest of a body of a tree. You go there and cut off some of that bark until you saw the white part of that skin of that there tree. Then you trim that dark part off of there, and then you cut you a piece of it and chew it, and it will turn into chewing gum.

You take it–you take it out of your mouth and pop it, and stretch it, and pop it, and if there were little sticks in it, the lil’ sticks would pop out. Then you take it…and they grew some lil’ flowers around–they usually call it mint–might know some mint–

Kaitlyn B Jones: –Mmhmm.

Jessie Mayberry: And you take a lil’ leaf off o' that, and chew it into that gum…and it smells just like peppermint gum!

Both: (laughing)

Jessie Mayberry: Now you can’t believe that, can you?

Kaitlyn B Jones: (laughs) No…!

Jessie Mayberry: Well that’s true! And your chewing gum would be real green ‘cause that lil’ leaf done been chewed up and make it smell just like you had real peppermint gum–only thing is it just didn’t have no sugar in it.