The Southern Hoodoo House

Every house keeps a record. Some of it is written in a family Bible. Some survives in a kitchen cabinet, a garden, a church fan, or a phrase a grandmother repeated.

The Southern Hoodoo House invites readers through the rooms, thresholds, and remembered places of Black Southern household life. From the front gate to the ancestor table, this illustrated Collector's Edition explores protection, prayer, roots, dreams, signs, and the family ways passed between generations.

Historical context accompanies family memory, distinguishing documented Hoodoo and rootwork from broader African American folklore, Christian devotion, regional customs, and household traditions. The story of Sallie Mae and her granddaughter gives the book a personal place to begin.

Inside, readers will find:

• A room-by-room journey through twenty household and community spaces

• Eleven historical essays exploring spiritual traditions, church life, plant knowledge, land, burial, migration, and women's domestic authority

• Twenty collector plates examining household objects and material culture

• Twenty-six family record pages for preserving names, places, customs, and memories

• Twenty-three oral-history interview and testimony pages

• Family photographs, interpretive archival-style illustrations, and source notes

Designed to be read, written in, and passed down, this book helps readers ask older relatives meaningful questions, identify treasured objects, and preserve what their families actually remember-including what remains uncertain.

For readers of Black American cultural history, Southern folklore, genealogy, and family storytelling, The Southern Hoodoo House offers a place to keep the knowledge that might otherwise disappear.