The BLACKprint: For Us, By Us, About Us

Greetings. Peace and blessings. Welcome to the BLACKprint show. My name is Jovannah Tisdale, and I am your host. BLACKprint stands for black liberation, ancestral connection, and knowledge. I got the idea to record this show, to start this podcast when after having a reading. And it was very profound That solidified the work that I was doing as a bodyworker, as a healer, and that that was part of my ancestral lineage to help heal Black Bodies. For me, that was very eye opening, especially because this was heavily on my paternal line, which is, you know, my father's side of the family.

And oftentimes, we don't when we think of our lineage and ancestry, we tend to lean on our mother's side. So it was very profound to not only build that connection within myself, but to also, help me feel more rooted in who I am as a American, as a black woman in America. In addition to being a bodyworker, you know, I am a spiritual channel. I do a lot of spiritual healing work, and I was receiving a lot of messages during this time, specifically, while I was dealing with some issues with a previous partnership and was getting a lot of messages about the trauma that we are experiencing, but also specifically to black men and the things that they are facing and dealing with that they probably don't even understand, realize, or talk about. And I wanted to create a platform specific to really talk about these things. So this show is for us. It's by us, and it is about us. 

I will state that because this is going out into the ethers, I never know who is gonna tune in. So this, You know, it's a safe space for people who are allies, who want to listen and to understand, but this will center black melanated beings. The BLACKprint almost did not make it into, this world because I was like, do I need a different show? And I'm like, you know, some of the same things that I wanna talk about, I can just do through, you know, my previous podcast, I was like, do I really need to create a separate space, and how will I nourish it? How is this gonna grow? Like, what is the purpose? 

Sunday morning, I woke up and went for a walk around this river. There's a, a park. There's a trail. It's a beautiful nature walk. I've visited this place, you know, several times. I'm new to the area, so I'm still learning my way around, and this is in the Carolinas. And so my 1st walk is beautiful. I allow myself to have my phone, and I take pictures of nature because I love nature photography. 

So my 2nd lap, it's time for me to put my phone up to tune in to the energy around me. So I turn my phone completely off. You know, I let myself bask in the sun for a moment. I'm still soaking in the energy, but now my focus is really on moving my body. Apparently, there are a lot of twists and turns on this on this trail. It's a small trail. It's not, like, overly large, but it was big enough for me to take a turn and realize, okay, I haven't been down this part of the trail.

Immediately, I saw this remnants of a structure, bricks and some kind of big cinder blocks in the ground, and there was this plaque. Inside of this, the remnants, there is a sign that says do not touch the ruins. Like, I'm in this like, there's this feeling. So I'm like, What is this? What is this? 

So I go and I read the placard, and they were the ruins of a plantation that existed in the 17, 1800. Actually, let me check because I took a picture of the placard because I wanted to research it more, but that is what inspired me to Start recording today. There was something sad and eerie about, Yeah. From this from the mid 1700 to late 1800, it was a rice plantation founded in the 17 forties. And the particular ruins that I was in standing before date from the Mid to late 1800, and they were thought to be storerooms, either a kitchen or smokehouse.

The main house was where the playground is where the children can play on the swing and go down the slide and things like that. I cried Thinking about the history of that land, the black bodies that were forced to work on that land, that were murdered on that land. The children that did not get to play, to exist, to live, to thrive, to grow on that land. And we think about slavery as being something that happened in the past, like and I think for me, what was so profound about that experience is that it's right there. I could touch a plantation in 2023. The ruins, the remnants of enslavement, of slavery, of the genocide of black bodies still exists today. And a lot of these spaces have been made over into parks into greenways, into neighborhoods. 

It's very common in North Carolina for neighborhoods to be named such and such plantation. It is not uncommon, and I thought about the bodies that are probably buried there. This area also happens to be a known alligator habitat. It is documented in history that black people, especially black babies, "tar babies" were used as bait for alligators. So I can only imagine the horrors and the atrocities that took place on that land. 

And then from a spiritual perspective, yes. Right? They It's been made over into this sanctuary where people can boat, people can fish, where children can play. There's a monument for, the armed forces, for the military, all the branches of the military. There is a beautiful monument there for them, but tucked away among the trees along the trail Are the bricks, the foundation of a plantation that was probably most likely built using slave labor, it is profound.

It is sad, but it, to me, it's a call when I thought about, like, wow, there's a playground here that Black children would not even have been allowed to to play, to experience. It reminded me the fact that, yes, we have come so far, but also, yes, there is much more to do, but also it is an act of liberation to live Abundantly Ever After. 

It's an act of liberation to rest, to let our children play, to travel, to learn new things, to do things that our people were never allowed to do. And just like those bricks, just like those ruins that are laying there, the impact and effects of slavery continue to affect our communities to this day. And there are so many conversations happening right now that I think dance around the issue at hand. And to me, that issue is it's, it is an US situation. It is an US problem. It is an US, you and I, issue at this point. 

To continue to wait for the powers that be, for society, for captain Save Em, for whoever we feel that we need to wait upon the drastic change, the evolution, and healing of our people lies Within our hands, the way that we raise our children, the things that we are consuming, be that food, be that media, the books, the teachings, what we're learning, the history, the research, all of these different things, it is up to us as individuals to reclaim our lineage, our knowledge, and the sacred wisdoms that we've had to to hide, that we weren't always able to access.

There's some other aspects of this that I wanna touch on that's the more, esoteric, the more spiritual. It's it's time to break the spell. It's time to break the cycle. It's it's time to truly I don't wanna say wake up, but it's time to live. It is it's time. It's time for us all to feel comfortable taking up space, to no longer need to code switch, or get our hair done in a way that's deemed appropriate for our corporate jobs. 

It's it truly is time to be empowered and really understand the legacy that we hold and that we possess. So welcome to the BLACKprint show all about Black Liberation, Ancestral Connection, and Knowledge.

I'm your host, Jovannah Tisdale. I am a Black American, Central American. I'm a mother. I'm a healer. I'm a spiritual teacher. And you'll get to know more about me on this show. I have 2 children who are Black girls 1 is a young black woman. The other is the black little girl. And I've gotten to see how the same insecurities that I had as a little girl showed up in my children. 

In 2023, little black girls still want hair like Elsa. Little black girls still wish their names were Bethann or something. Like, it's it needs to be okay for us to be who we are. It needs to be okay! Okay for us to use our voice, and to be seen and to be heard as who we are and no longer water that down for anyone. 

I do wanna be clear. This, again, is for us, by us, and about us. I don't wanna be talking about the man because the man like, no. No. No. No. No. No. This is a place of empowerment. This is a place of of radical acceptance and honesty and for transformation. This isn't a space for excuses.

Yes. We can talk about the the foundational and the societal constraints and structures, but we're also gonna find workarounds and ways to solve them and really, really be empowered. Okay?

So thank you for tuning in. I'm really excited about this and grateful that I was shown today that this is in fact needed. It's very interesting because while I was walking, I was thinking about, you know, being in America and some of the experiences that I had. And I was thinking about what America once was before it became the United States of America, like before the land was soiled and sullied and conquered and pillaged and plundered. And just looking at how things are today with, know, prices are what they are and was like one of my my goals, my dreams was always to relocate to And so I was thinking about that. Like and then I turned and happened upon these ruins of this plantation.

And so that was the motivation that I needed to record this episode. I will also share that, you know, I cried. Like, my heart was heavy. So heavy because I could I could feel so as I stood there in that space, I said a prayer and just gave honor and thanks to those who walked before me, those who went through hell, for lack of a better term, in order to ensure survival of of our people. 

So in part, this is also for them because their voices had to be hushed and hidden. They were forced to adapt, to lose who they were. And and I feel like now we must claim who we are. 

So thanks again for tuning in.

You can head over to jovannahtisdale.com/BLACKprint and sign up for my newsletter. It will be a separate newsletter outside of my main newsletter just because I do want it to focus specifically upon the topics of this show, and I will be looking for guests who want to come on and share their own knowledge and ancestral wisdom around any things about liberation of black people bettering ourselves and our community. 

So again, thank you for tuning in. Until next time, I am your host, Jovannah Tisdale, and you've been listening to the Blackprint.