Llewellyn
May 13, 2013 § 3 Comments
Simms and Llewellyn Interview
https://vimeo.com/79051537/settings/embed
In 1994, I conducted an interview with my first cousin, Simms Oliphant, about Llewellyn Rowe Hopkins—an African American woman who worked for our grandmother for 50 years. The interview was done as part of my early research for the documentary film, Shared History. Shared History is a PBS film about the connection of the descendants of the enslaved families at Woodlands Plantation and my family, who were the slave owners.
I Can’t Believe She Just Said That
February 23, 2012 § 1 Comment
These are the words my mother, Mary Simms Furman, spoke in this short segment shot for the Shared History documentary. The footage, which references the descendants of the enslaved people at Woodlands Plantation who took care of my mother as a child and helped her as an adult, was not used in the final film. It was deemed too inflammatory without the proper context. The Just Like Family blog will attempt to provide this context by looking at the stereotype and mythology of the “mammy” figure that was developed during slavery but magnified in the 20th century. Many of the profiles featured in Just Like Family were written by whites who describe their caretaker in stereotypical ways: a large, older black woman, full-bosomed, patient, sometimes sassy, asexual, faithful and unthreatening. I will address some of the theories and realities of this stereotypical image in the hopes of better understanding the relationship between the adult white children and their African American caretakers.
JUST LIKE FAMILY 