The preserved buildings and grounds are the former “Boggs Academy,” a once prominent boarding school for Black students in rural Georgia, which focused on academic preparation while also incorporating practical skills like farming and domestic work, reflecting the needs of the surrounding African American community at the time. The site now operates as a historical landmark, preserving the legacy of Black education in the rural South and often hosting community events and educational programs highlighting the stories of its former students and faculty.

 The cotton field, grown by a local Black farmer on Boggs land, called to me. I couldn’t resist grabbing a big bag and filling it to the top.

As I began to harvest, I found myself getting quiet, reflecting on the work we’d gathered to do, the way that so many of us had dropped everything to answer the call for support, the loss and struggle, as well as the joy, love, and the deep history bound up in this place. There was a blend of grief and awe that washed over me—the beauty of the community, the beauty of the cotton, contrasted with the knowledge of enslaved ancestors who were forced to toil in fields like this, under the threat of the whip. With each pluck of an open boll, memories of the stories of “Hands” from The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist came flooding back. I moved slowly through the field, observing how some of the elongated tufts seemed to signal that they were fully ripe and ready for the picking. Pulling the cotton from the bolls required only a slight twist to remove the fibers cleanly, but I moved slowly and deliberately, selectively choosing which bolls I would harvest while avoiding the prick of the open bud. I couldn’t fathom the labor and precision required to accomplish this with speed and precision. Enslaved people were forced to master a two-hand picking technique, which required them to work with both hands simultaneously but independently, a brutal method designed to enhance the speed of picking. This feat required a level of disembodied practice. Failure to master this technique often led to punishment and a “diminished value”. The ability to perform it commonly resulted in extreme exhaustion and injury.

It was a deeply powerful and reflective moment.

There was a reclaiming of something that had been exploited and lost—for both the work that lies ahead, the cotton itself and my heritage—that felt fulfilling. The possibility of gleaning the fields after the full harvest fills me with anticipation. On our drive home, miles and miles of cotton lined the road through Burke County, as far as the eye could see. Knowing that this cotton field was Black-owned felt like a quiet Jubilee, a reclaiming of something long denied.

If you’d like to support the ongoing recovery efforts at Boggs Rural Life Center, we encourage you to consider making a donation. Every little bit helps to rebuild and keep this historic space thriving.

Click here to donate and stay tuned for more updates from the field!

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