REPOSSESSIONS: An Interview with Lotte Lieb Dula
Lotte Lieb Dula, retired financial strategist, co-founded the Reparations4Slavery portal in 2018 with Briayna Cuffie. In 2021, Lotte and Sarah Eisner of The Reparations Project began collaborating on the group art exhibition Repossessions, along with educator and curator, Bridget Cooks, PhD.
Repossessions is a group exhibition inspired by the concept of reparations: the effort to repair the economic and psychological devastation caused by slavery for descendants of enslaved African Americans. It presents the work of five Black artists commissioned to create artworks based on documents from the enslavement and Jim Crow eras in the United States. Chelle Barbour, Marcus Brown, Rodney Ewing, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle (Olomidara Yaya), and Curtis Patterson each offer insightful ways to understand the significance of the original documents, which were offered to the artists by white families working toward repair through
an initiative of The Reparations Project in collaboration with Reparations4Slavery that date from the 1860s to the early 1900s. Using a variety of visual strategies, the newly produced artworks contribute to viewers’ understanding of the long aftermath of enslavement and the need for reparations.
"The idea of Repossessions is to give objects of ephemera from the enslavement or Jim Crow eras to Black artists to transform. For instance, we currently have a plantation map, a plantation ledger, a sharecropping photograph, and Confederate money, just to start with this first group of five artists."
Bridget R. Cooks, PhD,
Curator
Read Bridget's Interview
"Sarah mentioned the idea for Repossessions in late 2020...I immediately thought of my ancestor’s plantation ledger records and asked Sarah if I could collaborate on the project."
Read Sarah's Interview
R4S:
Welcome Lotte! So how did you become involved with The Reparations Project’s initiative, Repossessions?
Lotte:
Thanks for having me!
As you may know, Sarah Eisner and Randy Quarterman of The Reparations Project, as well as Briayna Cuffie and me, are featured in the PBS documentary, The Cost of Inheritance. What people may not know, however, is that we’ve all known each other since 2019. Sarah and I have stayed in touch and supported each other’s efforts in a variety of ways.
Sarah mentioned the idea for Repossessions in late 2020; she had provided Rodney Ewing, a Black artist, with her family’s plantation map, and the resulting artwork was deeply powerful. I immediately thought of my ancestor’s plantation ledger records and asked Sarah if I could collaborate on the project.
"R4S' goal is to assist white families in understanding the genesis of the racial wealth gap...to clarify where our families fit into this puzzle and to provide guidance in creating plans of repair that address specific harms."
R4S:
You provided a page from your ancestor’s plantation ledger book as the basis for the artwork by Curtis Patterson. What should we know about this book?
Lotte:
The film The Cost of Inheritance begins with me finding the plantation ledger in a box of family ephemera in 2018. That find is what propelled me to explore the reparations movement and try to define what reparative justice might look like for a white descendant of enslavers. Six months later, I met my project partner Briayna Cuffie, and we co-founded our portal, Reparations4slavery.com, which focuses on education for white families who have backgrounds like mine and wish to engage in direct repair.
R4S' goal is to assist white families in understanding the genesis of the 10:1 racial wealth gap through the lens of history, from slavery through sundown towns, to clarify where our families fit into this puzzle and to provide assistance in creating plans of repair that address specific harms.
"I believe that my ancestor, W.H. Paxton, may have petitioned the state of Mississippi for reparations due to his "loss of property,” including human chattel, during the Civil War. I believe I'm karmically linked to the movement for reparations to African Americans because of that history."
Bridget:
Lotte, in that ledger, the title of the pages is Loss of Slaves by War 1861 - 1865. Do you know what this title refers to?
Lotte:
I believe that my ancestor, W.H. Paxton, may have petitioned the state of Mississippi for reparations due to his loss of “property,” including human chattel, during the Civil War. I believe I'm karmically linked to the movement for reparations to African Americans because of that history. It's a perfect mirroring; I am called to do this work because of that ledger, which sat in a box for over 150 years until the time was right.
R4S:
You commissioned a lithograph of pages from the ledger, which Curtis Patterson and Marcus Brown have incorporated in their respective artworks in the exhibition. How did that process begin?
Lotte:
The ledger book is very small – just 5” x 7”— and I felt it important that the names of the enslaved, which are listed on the page with their ages and “values,” be easily legible. My husband Rick had been a master printer, working with artists in the past; his close friend Steve Campbell had recently founded Black Rock Editions. Steve and his team did an amazing job printing the lithograph. He also made the introduction to artist Curtis Patterson, who received the first commission to work with the ledger prints.
"If viewers are called to join this conversation - join together across the racial divide and learn more about their ancestry and the history of this country, to work together toward repair - we feel our mission is gaining ground."
R4S:
How does Repossessions fit into the reparations work you and Briayna are doing with Reparations4slavery?
Lotte:
One aspect of the work Briayna and I have been called to do is to help daylight erased history, to provide a pathway for both Black and white people who wish to delve into reparative genealogy.
The idea of reparative genealogy is that Black and white people work together to reassemble our historical narrative. Black people have a great challenge finding their ancestors before 1870, the first year Black people are listed by name in census records. Before that time, few records survive except for slave schedules, wills, deeds, etc. However, some white families, like Sarah’s and mine, happen to have records that provide names and other information. We encourage white families to digitize these records so they can be broadly used by the Black genealogy community. So that descendants may be reunited with their ancestors. We always lift up Coming To The Table and Sharon Morgan of Our Black Ancestry, who have been instrumental in building these pathways across the U.S. and mentoring us.
Both Curtis Patterson and Marcus Brown have created works of art, statements of liberation really, based on the names of the 44 souls my ancestors enslaved. The works of art in Repossessions express a desire for repair that mere words cannot properly convey. If viewers see these works and are called to join this conversation - join together across the racial divide and learn more about their ancestry and the true history of this country - if they are called to work together toward repair, we feel our mission is gaining ground.
R4S:
What do you hope the impact of this exhibition will be?
Lotte:
For me, these artworks represent the processes of truth telling, transformation, and healing. Black families have been telling the truth about history for 400 years. It’s time that white families did the same. By releasing pages from this ledger, I am preventing this history, the truth of these human beings and their enslavement by my ancestors, from being erased. The artwork that has been created reflects the possibility that this history can be metabolized through a process of reparatory justice; humanity can be reclaimed, and power and dignity can be repossessed—a balancing of the scales. The artworks represent a living conversation on the nature of repair that can be brought to any community.
"The artwork that has been created reflects the possibility that this history can be metabolized through a process of reparatory justice; humanity can be reclaimed, and power and dignity can be repossessed—a balancing of the scales. The artworks represent a living conversation on the nature of repair that can be brought to any community."