Before My Superhero Stories, There Was My Ancestor: Reading His Words on Juneteenth
The Story We Carry
Juneteenth always makes me think about stories.
Not the stories people tell about us. The stories we carry.
Many years ago, I held a book in my hands that changed the way I saw myself. Inside was the autobiography of my ancestor, Houston Hartsfield Holloway, born into slavery in Georgia. My grandmother’s grandfather didn’t wait for someone to record him. He taught himself to read and write (at a time when only about 5% of enslaved people were literate) and he wrote his own life by hand. 182 pages. His descendants donated the manuscript to the Library of Congress in 1978. His oldest granddaughter transcribed it for the family in 1983.
Through his words, I wasn’t just reading history. I was reading about my family.
A Man Who Built His Own Freedom
What I didn’t expect was how he wrote. My grandmother’s grandfather wasn’t a passive figure waiting to be saved. He was already teaching Sunday school while still enslaved, as well as trading and navigating a world that wasn’t built for his survival. And doing it on his own terms.
When his enslaver refused to let him marry the woman he loved, He didn’t accept it. He paid conjurers to change his enslaver’s mind. When the messenger came riding up on a mule shouting that the Yankees were coming, his response was simple:
“You’re a liar.”
He didn’t trust liberation that came from outside. He had been building his own freedom from the inside for years.
What Most People Don’t Know About Juneteenth
Here’s what most people don’t know about Juneteenth: the Emancipation Proclamation was signed January 1, 1863. Houston was legally free from that moment. But nobody told him. He spent two and a half more years still enslaved but even enslaved he protected his wife.
His freedom came June 4, 1865 (two weeks before the official Juneteenth we now celebrate) when his enslaver finally called everyone to the house door.
Juneteenth is marked on June 19, 1865, the day Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas (the last place the news finally reached).
The delay wasn’t accidental. It never is.
When freedom finally came, My ancestor wrote it with three words:
Amen. Amen. Amen.
Then he walked two miles to find his Aunt Susan still working in the field. When he told her they were free, she embraced him. Then embraced him again.
We Were Already Here
His own grandfather’s story traces my family’s presence in America back to 1798, just a decade after the Constitution was signed. While the founders were still shaping what this country would become, my people were already here; leaving something behind for the generations they would never meet.
This Juneteenth, I’m celebrating by sitting with his words. Re-reading them slowly. Because he wrote this autobiography for his future generations to remember. I’m remembering him and I owe it to him to recognize that he didn’t just survive, he lived with agency. Through his own words, he claimed autonomy even when he was legally someone else’s property.
He fought for the freedom to love who he wanted, an education he built himself from scraps and his faith that he carried with him that framed his life. I respect and appreciate everything that his life represented for me and my family.
Why I Write What I Write
And maybe that’s why I write the stories I write.
When I create women like Tia Jackson — who carries divine power she didn’t ask for, who fights for a city that doesn’t always see her, who refuses to disappear — I’m not inventing courage. I’m remembering it. Houston Hartsfield Holloway was already writing the template.
Before my superhero stories, there were my ancestor’s words. And he was already showing me how to live, survive and write.
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