You can reach the land by dirt road, or by boat if you sail down the Santee River towards the Atlantic. This plot of land has been in my family since the 1860s when it was purchased by my ancestors after emancipation. The Hopswee plantation, where they were once enslaved still stands a mile away, now a wedding destination. The land presents unanswered questions about ownership, belonging, citizenship, and history. Its transformation from marsh to the mainline of American rice and wealth was predicated on the skilled labor and ingenuity of Africans, primarily from the rice coast of western Africa. The fields were abandoned after Emancipation when the formerly enslaved left for other trades. The land’s potential still exists. One day I will inherit this land. And I will inherit all of this history and presence that comes with it. – Jon-Sesrie Goff