I love autumn, and I love watching the leaves turn. These days, it takes them longer and longer; and this year, the colors were quite muted due to widespread summer drought. But it’s still my favorite time of year; and so, I headed to the Great Smoky Mountains for a few days, where, among my wanderings, I visited Mingus Mill, a historic site located half a mile from the Oconaluftee Visitor Center on the North Carolina side of the park.
For the uninitiated, Mingus Mill is a historic gristmill, built in 1886 and still operable, as it was in the beginning. Visitors can watch corn being ground into cornmeal, old school, from a water-powered turbine that runs all the machinery in the old wooden building built from felled tulip trees on what was once acres of farmland. Kids love this, but it’s quite interesting for all ages; and when he was little, my son was fascinated by the mechanics involved. Flash forward and he’s an adult and a jazz fan and says to me, “Hey, did you know that Charles Mingus is the Mingus of the Mingus Mill?” You’re kidding me, but yes indeed,
That is true; Mingus’ grandfather, Daniel was a slave on the Mingus farm. He later gained his freedom and married a white woman; they had a son, Charles Mingus Sr., who was a buffalo soldier; and his son, is the Charles we know as one of the greatest American composers and musicians of all time. Apparently, Charles Sr. never spoke of Swain County or the Smokies because of its painful memories and much of this lineage has come to light very recently.
On this recent trek, I wanted to head back, to revisit, and remember and take a couple of new snaps to send my son, who was busy adulting. But I also wanted to think of Charles and visit the slave cemetery on the grounds. There is a small informational plaque at the end of the parking lot that tells you about the cemetery. It’s a short walk up the hill, but there is no other signage; and of course, the graves are unmarked.
While the Park acknowledges its existence and the presence of the Mingus jazz lineage, the individuals who lived, and loved, and persevered through their terrible fortunes remain anonymous, as they were in life. Ghosts then and now. There are coins on the gravestones, because it is an African custom, laid there so that the spirits of the ancestors do not wander. Today, they are considered symbols of visibility and respect. Unlike the settler graves in Cades Cove, there is no opportunity for relatives to come and pay respects – but then, why would they? It would be generational trauma relived.
This time, my visit was especially apropos; it was a couple weeks before Election Day and I’d been putting a lot of extra time into volunteering for a person, who I hoped would be our first female president, a mixed-race woman who had, in my opinion, ten times the intelligence and moral compass of her opponent. She is a Mingus fan, as well.
As I sat there in the late afternoon sun, with shadows covering these already hidden graves, I couldn’t help thinking about how the United States is still struggling with Reconstruction, without resolution, and that conquest and slavery have taken a massive toll on the moral fabric of the country throughout its history. It’s worth noting that during the late 1800s, the United States passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, defined birthright citizenship, and guaranteed equal protection under the law. At least two of three are under assault today. Bad karma and unraveled threads abound.
I spent quite a bit of time there, among the stillness and the spirits, turning into dusk. Occasionally, the hemlocks rustled in the breeze and the coins would shimmer in the spaces, casting their own silent music, making their own quiet offering, Charles Mingus family tree encapsulating all the suffering and the redemption inherent in my birth country’s history. Of course, I had to take pictures and write about it, not just because that’s how I process experience, but because it is essential to share, because history is there to be remembered, because otherwise, we never learn, grow, and embrace our better angels.
Doug Hoekstra is a Chicago-bred, Nashville-based writer and musician, educated at DePaul University in the Windy City (B.A.) and Belmont University in the Music City (M.Ed.), whose prose, poetry, and non-fiction have appeared in numerous print and online literary journals. His first set of stories, Bothering the Coffee Drinkers earned an Independent Publisher Award.
