Chilluns' Croon

Imagery created based on documents of genealogical and historical interest of Wilson County, North Carolina’s African-American past curated by Lisa Y. Henderson.

Chilluns’ Croon investigates themes of the past such as absence, remembrance, spirituality, and mortality of formerly enslaved people of Wilson County, North Carolina. An intimate portrait of an African American community, Chilluns’ Croon hums songs of hope, equality, and change for new generations.

The series is based on an archive of documents of genealogical and historical interest to researchers of Wilson County’s historical African American community. Curated by Lisa Y. Henderson, the archive Black Wide-Awake includes a range of files, from photographs, family diaries, and plantation records to newspaper clippings of obituaries, town crimes, and social events, among others. The archive files date from the mid-1700s, times of slavery in the 1800s, segregation era in the 1900s, and documents of new local activists seeking to restore and preserve their African American legacy.

Chilluns’ Croon incorporates old transcripts from the Federal Writers Project (FWP) featuring interviews with formerly enslaved African Americans. Together, the compilation of documents reveals old spiritual beliefs and stories of love and loss from the time of slavery in the United States.