by Court | May 27, 2021
My dearest planchette pushers: As you know, I traffic in the macabre. I write about mayhem and death and how those things haunt us. This week’s story is one that I’ve been turning over in my head for a month, trying to make sense of and wanting to tell in the right...
by Court | May 21, 2021
“From Mam’zelle LaVeaux Mary learned to mentor her people and to use the secrets of the rich to gain aid for the poor – a ‘model’ that would serve her well in San Francisco.” Sushell Bibbs, Heritage of Power Mary Ellen Pleasant had a...
by Court | May 17, 2021
“I don’t like to be called mammy by everybody. Put. That. Down. I am not mammy to everybody in California. I received a letter from a pastor in Sacramento. It was addressed to Mammy Pleasant. I wrote back to him on his own paper that my name was Mrs. Mary...
by Court | May 14, 2021
“I’d rather be a corpse than a coward.” Mary Ellen Pleasant’s Story Mary Ellen Pleasant was a prominent abolitionist in the lead up to the Civil War, in California and beyond. Some of the details about her work are up for debate, but there is no doubt that...
by Court | May 12, 2021
My dearest full bodied apparitions, I finally finished my Mary Ellen Pleasant series! Part 1 and Part 2 are now live on the blog. DAMN that one took awhile but it was worth it! I have been researching Pleasant for months now – I read academic texts, ghost...
