Tifara Brown

Honeysuckle Tifara Brown

"Lacoochee Negro, Father 11 Children, Killed By Train"
That is how the Dade City Banner, and the white world, buried Wallace Jordan away.
Honeysuckle: Poems and Stories from a Black Southerner is a poetic tribute to an excruciating past of racial violence in the Deep South, one woman's attempt to honor her ancestor's story of a wrongful death and audacious resilience. These works labor to shine light on the reality of living Black in America in hopes of inspiring action and a transformation in all who read them.

Wallace Jordan was a Black log hooker and grocery delivery man living with his family of 12 in northern Florida, in the heat of Jim Crow. He was accused of being "fresh" with his white boss's wife by looking at her, and subsequently was beat to death, his mutilated body thrown on the railroad tracks and his story swept away with the passing train that was said to have killed him. His family moved away shortly after in an attempt to preserve their own lives and possibly begin again.

Wallace's family continues to search for answers in the swamps of the South. But the true purpose of Honeysuckle is to perpetuate healing in the heart of this author honoring her ancestor and provoke the reader to search the depths of their own heart's archives - and have the courage to speak the truth at all costs.