Word: chinquapin
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...surprisingly, Tims Creek is much like Chinquapin, N.C., the impoverished outpost where Kenan grew up "going to hog killings one minute and watching Star Trek the next." He was sent there at six weeks old by his parents, who were unmarried and residing in New York, to be reared by his great-aunt. His upbringing became the collective endeavor of a group of elderly relatives with abiding faith in both religion and folklore who spent endless hours telling fantastical stories--"tales of ghost dogs and people rising from the dead." The residue of these stories has found its way into...
...welcomes the passing of certain aspects of that rigid culture. "The monolith of the black church, for example, has some outdated ways of thinking that can hold a people back," he says. At the same time, he laments the demise of those elements that have proved so nurturing, particularly Chinquapin's understanding of family. "Because of slavery, the idea of nuclear family didn't exist among black Americans," says Kenan. "So people depended on a network of family, but now many of those networks are breaking down." Kenan found his nostalgia echoed across the country as he researched his most...
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