New Orleans native Shantrelle P. Lewis’ new film, “In Our Mothers’ Gardens,'' explores relationships between mothers and their daughters. L. Kasimu Harris, also from New Orleans, spoke with Lewis about parenting and making peace with, and finding strength from, our mothers and all the mothers before them.
Conversation hosted by L. Kasimu Harris | Photos by Jeremy Tauriac
Shantrelle P. Lewis’ film “In Our Mothers’ Gardens” was acquired by Array, a company founded by Ava DuVernay and debuted this week on Netflix, just in time for Mother’s Day. She is also a curator, author, and cultural critic, and the co-founder of SHOPPE BLACK.
When Lewis and I met in 2008, we had some accomplishments — but a lot of dreams and degrees. It was just before Christmas, and I meandered into the George & Leah McKenna Museum of African American Art for “Shootout: Lonely Crusade … An Homage to Jamel Shabazz,” the iconic New York street photographer. I was alone and knew no one there. But I met Lewis, who has become a lifelong friend, a sister. She was the executive director and curator of the McKenna and introduced me to the world of young Black creatives, chiefly writers, artists, and photographers. This was a period when the wrath of Hurricane Katrina was still being felt three years later and too many of the city’s residents were scattered around America.
We, New Orleans and beyond, were healing. And that is the intention of her film: healing. Lewis’ documentary explores maternal relationships of women from the African Diaspora. Lewis conducts the interviews, in which women recount the strength, beauty, and, oftentimes, the inability of their mothers and grandmothers to address trauma. But Lewis also faces the camera and confronts her beautifully complicated relationship with her mother. The film could make you laugh or weep, but it will for damn sure make you think about the mothers in your life.
L. Kasimu Harris: What was the moment that you decided you wanted to make this film?
Shantrelle P. Lewis: My first trip to South Africa was one of the most paradigm-shifting trips in my life. Before I got back, I sat down with this material that I shot over the course of three years. I didn't know for sure that I had a film. But I hung a picture of me and my grandmother up for inspiration, and that motivated me immediately to start doing the work. I think the stillness of the pandemic forced me to sit with my thoughts and develop the story. I started thinking about motherhood and thinking about my relationship with my mom and kind of unpacking that.
LKH: Tell me about another trip that changed you.
SPL: I went on this trip to Brazil with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement that predated Black Lives Matter. I went to Bahia and [saw] all these Black women wearing all white and these colorful beads. And I'm like, Wait, why didn't I get the memo? I was just blown away by the fact that these Afro Brazilian women had been stewards of African spirituality for hundreds of years. I was told when I first initiated as a Sango priest that I needed to heal this relationship with my mom. … And we say that we need to heal our relationship with our mothers. We say that philosophically. But what does that work really mean? And that was the work I am trying to do, a conversation I am trying to push, with this film.
LKH: So in doing that healing work with others, you have to first heal yourself as it relates to your mother. Is that correct?
SPL: Asé, amen, hallelujah, praise them. There are so many people in this self-care and spiritual and healing work space that are not actually doing that ugly, messy, complicated, insecure work of reckoning with themselves and with the people in their lives. How can I talk about healing between mothers and daughters if I'm not unpacking my own issues? Who am I in the context of my mama, who is she in the context of my grandmother, and who is she in the context of me? I like this idea of sitting in our mothers’ gardens, going back to Alice Walker [in her book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens], Walker mentioned that she sat in her mother's garden in order to find herself.
LKH: When you were going through an initiation and it was suggested to you that you needed to work on a relationship with your mother, was it an affirmation or a revelation?
SPL: It was more of a confirmation. There was a disconnect between us emotionally; we have come a long way. My mama became a matriarch before her time. Then I asked myself, what does that mean for her as a mother? I felt the impact of what that meant, as her girl child. But I didn't really intellectualize what that meant, to be thrown into mothering full-time at a young age. I kind of, now, understand a little bit of what my mama was experiencing. I was able to make a different set of choices and have a different level of independence and freedom that she didn't have. But it still wasn't until I heard her story that I was able to offer that level of compassion.
LKH: I think that was a beautiful thing. There's this quote that Delfeayo Marsalis put on one of his albums: “Denial is always easier than confrontation, especially when what you have to confront is yourself.”
SPL: I mean, it's true. I don't know too many people that are willing to do that, at least that early on in their life.
I want to hear your reaction to the film. The South is very present throughout, and even in the stories of the [Great] Migration. I want to hear what came up for you as a viewer seeing parts of New Orleans that are not necessarily always discussed. And when people talk about New Orleans, it’s, Go to Tremé, or, post-Katrina, it's a conversation about the Lower 9th Ward. But with me talking about Algiers, and Mama Koko [one of the women featured in the film] talking about “Louisiana West” via the Migration — out in southern Los Angeles and Compton — how did you receive that?
LKH: First of all, aesthetically, it was appealing to see those beautiful people who have done all these wonderful creative things in life, who are unabashedly from the South, either from the land or as a descendant of someone who migrated. So looking at your film, I'm admiring all these people who offer a counter-narrative to what some Southern women are supposed to be.
SPL: Yes. A stereotype that I grew up with: We're Southern and we're supposed to speak a certain way; we're less intelligent or less educated or less worldly. What are all the stereotypes for you?
LKH: Those things! You hit it on the head, those things that you're from the South and you're going to stay in the South. You're going to die in the South.
SPL: I don't go anywhere and people not know that I'm from New Orleans. It's going to come up in conversation because somebody will ask me where I'm from, I'm going to say, “I'm from New Orleans.” It shows up in my work because it's how I interact with the world as a dark-skinned Black woman from New Orleans who grew up on both sides of the [Mississippi] River.
LKH: And people have to understand that. Even though Algiers is a part of New Orleans, the Eastbank and the Westbank, they are separated by the Mississippi River. I don't want to say two totally different worlds, but they obviously each have their own ethos; those neighborhoods move differently. The schools are different. So it's cool that you were "bi-bankal."
SPL: And I think that set me up for the rest of my life in terms of exploration, excavation, and being centered, because I did grow up on both sides of the river. I was born in Hotel Dieu Hospital. The first few years of my life, when my parents were still married, we were living in New Orleans East. My dad’s family was from the 7th Ward. My mama's family were from Algiers on both sides. That was my childhood, like my whole entire grounding experience. Whereas some kids might have grown up with experiences limited to their neighborhoods. Having that relationship to the land and that swampy terrain also had a large impact and shaped me into who I would become and my storytelling.
LKH: Can you tell me about some of the stories that you heard through these various family homes and neighborhoods in New Orleans?
SPL: Now, all of my parents, all three of them, definitely made sure that I was deeply grounded, rooted in my identity: Black books, Black art in the house along with 7th Ward Santa — the city’s Black Santa Claus, Black angels, everything Black.
That love of history and genealogy definitely came from my daddy, who would have me sit down and write out my family tree. And I heard stories via my great-aunt, Ora Mae, who was a writer, a journalist, and a scholar who founded a literary magazine called Twinkle. She said that we were descended from Henri Christophe [the first king of Haiti]. There was allegedly a letter that detailed it from one of our family members that I think was lost in Katrina. There was this one story my daddy told me about some gold buried on a lot of land that my family owned in the 7th Ward. And he said my uncles rented a mule and had on hard hats, and had a wagon because they were “going digging for gold.” So I'm like, imagining my uncles doing this. Was this true? My dad would tell me stories and I'm like, “This shit sounds crazy.” Then I would ask my grandpa, who was also a storyteller. And either he would confirm what my daddy said or he would embellish it. So that richness in storytelling made my life feel vast, it made me very rooted in legacy and in history and heritage and identity.
SPL: So the film is about mothers and daughters. And you're not a mother. You're not a daughter. Your mother passed away a handful of years ago. Did it give you someplace to reflect on and even talk about your relationship with your mom?
LKH: First of all, my mother, Eartha Lee Harris, was a florist, so the title alone made me think about her. My mother loved the color purple. That was our favorite color. And she was a gun-wielding woman. She would tell a story about a previous relationship prior to meeting my father. She kept asking her then-boyfriend to do something ... maybe it didn’t get done. So she took out a gun and shot at him! My mother was a smoker. And obviously I'm going to end with, you know, almost every Sunday we were at church. And that was very important to me and to her. And I think it helped shape my life.
Every time you have a story about a woman who you may have thought, “That’s not what women are supposed to do,” like a woman being independent to raise kids on her own; to confront and not take no shit on her own; a woman willing to move across the country; a woman who you go to the house and it's the smell, the food, cooking … it feels like a piece of heaven. You know, just the woman who made holiday special events special. That was my mom. That's what I connected to.
I felt a deep admiration for you. Because even though the story wasn't solely about your mother, you got a chance to tell your mother's story. You got a chance to tell all of these women’s stories.
SPL: Tarana Burke and Brené Brown just published You Are Your Best Thing, and they open the book with Jason Reynolds sharing a story about his mother and some shame and regret there and healing and reconciling. And I think that it is never too late to cultivate our mothers’ stories. And so even though your mother is gone, I think there's an opportunity to excavate things that you didn't even know.
LKH: I think that's so beautiful.
SPL: You said you were going to church with your mama every Sunday and talking about spirituality, which was important for me. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and his special on the Black church delved into Islam. It covered a lot of ground, but the missing element was the Black Catholic Church of Louisiana. … I don't know how often you try to communicate with your mother in that way and do tactile things to serve her. But I would definitely encourage you to cook stuff or give her some cigarettes as a way of remembering her. Like Mama Koko said in the film: “Forgetting is the true death.”
LKH: So could you explain Voodoo and Hoodoo to us and maybe even just basically dispel some myths. And why it's important to you and your life?
SPL: We grew up in New Orleans, and so everybody talks about voodoo. New Orleans was this hotbed of Vodou, which was a religion that was brought here by Haitians who came over before and after the Haitian Revolution. [Vodoun] is a religion that was based on the Fon and the Fon belief system from Benin. And so this ancient, Earth-based, monotheistic, ancestor-venerating religion took root in Algiers, and Hoodoo, an American Black South derivative of African spirituality, also took shape in Algiers.
So I just want to take this opportunity to locate the importance of Algiers and the study of Hoodoo as an actual religion. Even within the landscape of African spiritual traditions, Hoodoo has been bastardized and not given the proper respect as Vodoun, Santeria, Lucumí, Ifa, Candomblé, and some of these other traditions that exist in Haiti, Cuba, and Brazil. I want to join the chorus of scholars, such as Dr. Katrina Hazzard-Donald and practitioners to help amplify Hoodoo in the landscape of Africa, the study of African spirituality, so they can see its prominence, its rightful place, and those sacred traditions that have helped us to survive as a people.
LKH: How did you meet Ava DuVernay and get to work with her company, Array?
SPL: In a recent interview with WHUR, I said that the first time I met Ava, I picked her up from the airport because she was our honored guest at the BlackStar Film Festival many years ago. And she doesn't remember that moment, but we've been admirers of each other’s work ever since. Last year, I was at BlackStar Film Festival [which, like so many things in 2020, was digital] and screened the first iteration of my film, and Tilane Jones, the president of Array, reached out to me and was like, “Ava and I saw the film, and we loved it. We want to distribute it, and put it on Netflix and make sure that millions of people can see it around the world!” And they have been very supportive. You know, it's one thing to see a company that says it supports Black filmmakers and emerging filmmakers and storytellers. And it's another thing to experience that. They tell me, “We are a small and mighty team.” There is nothing small about it — it's all mighty.
LKH: I love hearing those stories.
SPL: How does my film make you reflect on your role as a father and your relationship with Ariel and Liori [your wife and daughter]? How did it make you look at Black women in general?
LKH: I always tell my daughter stuff like, “You're beautiful, you're smart, you're strong.” She'll be 3 in two months. And just to be real honest, I never, ever wanted a daughter. I think it was just a fear. But I heard it said that it took a good man to raise a great woman.
Watching the film, I thought about how other people's lives could affect yours. The trauma that they have or the stress or depression that they have, how it can impact you and if you don't recognize it and address it, it could therefore transition to your children or other people in your life.
There's always some sadness that my mother is not here physically to be with my daughter. And my mother was very brave. I remember she just seemed to be very fearless, and I got that from a lot of women in the film, too. I remember someone stole my bike one time and my mom rode around looking for this bike. I remember being in a car with her one day and we were a couple of neighborhoods away. She was like, “Is that the bike? Is that the bike?”
And I was like, “That's it. That's it.” She put the car in reverse and chased the two teenage boys on a bike. So the rider threw off the boy who was the passenger, and my mom ran out the car and got this little boy and put him in a minivan and she said, “Either you tell me where he lives or I'll take you to jail.”
SPL: Oh, my God!
LKH: And they lived pretty far from my house, you know, and she brought us to the boy's mama’s house. And my mama told her what the deal was. And she was like, “The bike better be back in our yard by the time we get back.” And I got back to Broad Street, where we lived, and that bike was there.
SPL: Your mama was a gangster!
LKH: Yes, she really was. To be honest, I learned a lot from my mom. Improvising, my mother was great at that. And then she'd be in church on Sunday.
SPL: You know, that was, for real, a kidnapping! I'm sitting there, trying to figure out how to describe that little joyride?
What do you think she would say to you? And you think she would be proud of you? Do you think she would tell you stuff, you know, like you need to eat healthy or you need to go to the gym?
LKH: She would definitely be proud of me. She was proud of me when I joined Kappa [one of the oldest historically Black fraternities]. Even though she used to mistakenly call it Kappa Alpha Psi sorority. But then she got it right. So where I am in life now, she would really be proud, like to be on TV and newspapers and books, that she would be bringing all that shit to the goddamn community center for old folks. She probably would tell me I need to work out a little bit more, and she would like my cooking now, even though I can't make her gumbo or her red beans and rice.
But she would sit in the kitchen and drink beer and she would help me out. She would love that. You know, she has three beautiful grandkids. I know she would feel like all her hard work paid off.
SPL: What do you think she would pass on to Liori?
LKH: I like to think that she would like to be really friendly to her and try to give her some life lessons. She was a woman who grew up fast. When she was about 14, she had to take care of her brothers and sisters, and then she had a child when she was really young. … Then she still was able to go on and become a professional woman.
SPL: Is there anything your mother can still pass on to Liori in terms of an attribute or a survival strategy or a way of being? What would that one thing be?
LKH: Bravery and love. I felt that from my mother and I feel that in Liori. She is always very loving, very independent, like my mom. When I look at her, I just see my mom, you know, and it's real good. So I'm always hugging on Liori, just hugging my kids. And I think she really loves the color purple, too. She always picks purple flowers from the plant next door. What is your hope for your film?
SPL: In the way that “Daughters of the Dust,” “Eve's Bayou,” “The Color Purple,” and “The Women of Brewster Place” have helped to shape Black women and Black women's nuanced experiences in film, I hope that this piece adds to the canon, so little girls like Liori and my bonus daughter, Sade, and my niece, Aniyah, can actually grow up in a world where we could impart a different way of being Black women onto our daughters and heal some of those generational traumas and curses, so that we're not passing that on to them. That's my prayer, for us to heal those relationships.
“In Our Mothers’ Gardens” celebrates the strength and resiliency of Black women and Black families through the complex and oftentimes humorous relationship between mothers and daughters. The film pays homage to Black maternal ancestors while examining the immediate and critical importance of self-care, and the healing tools necessary for Black communities to thrive. In select theaters and streaming now on Netflix.
L. Kasimu Harris is a New Orleans-based artist whose practice deposits a number of different strategic and conceptual devices in order to push narratives. He strives to tell stories of underrepresented communities in New Orleans and beyond. In 2020, Harris showed at the Ford Foundation Gallery, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, August Wilson African American Cultural Center, and Crystal Bridges Museum of Art. Also in 2020, his images and essay, “A Shot Before Last Call: Capturing New Orleans’s Vanishing Black Bars,” was published in The New York Times. He received Artist-in-Residencies from the Center for Photography at Woodstock and the Joan Mitchell Center. In 2017, he wrote this remembrance of his mother and her cooking for The Bitter Southerner.
