BTW, I've been reading Manigault-Bryant's TALKING TO THE DEAD in the other window.

Wow. This is what we believe and do...

Now I'm wondering where Black Florida is located in Geechee research, as well as the Great Migration as a Black (Southern) cultural blender of sorts.

Because in my experience, most of us talk to our dead like this. My mother & grandmother, if I asked questions like "what would X say?" encouraged me to talk to them.

I've definitely had (unasked for, unusual) spells, too. But I called Mom & she said "that's just Black folk."

We also assume that our close kinfolk visit us in dreams, that each successive generation of our children will encounter them (like, doesn't everyone?), and that they linger near before death and just after.

But I thought all of that was just Old Black Folks, Inc.

And McKoy's idea of limbo time is why I should've stayed in grad school an extra year and finished my certificate in Africana studies. Lots to think about here.

Still not sure this is region specific (like, even Black folk from other regions of the South believe some of this - my paternal relatives from Mississippi and Alabama sure do), but I'm at the beginning of all this reading.

Thanks so much to all those who suggested texts!