Shade Tree

The shade tree was never a place of rest. It was where enslaved children were forced to sit all day while their parents worked the fields, too young to labor, but not allowed to be with their mothers or fathers. They watched everything: the heat, the exhaustion, the punishments. That same tree was also where people were whipped, tied, or made examples of. So kids grew up under branches that held both their earliest memories and their earliest traumas. A tree meant for protection became a front-row seat to their parents’ suffering, turning shade into something that carried fear instead of comfort.