Working The Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing

by Michele Elizabeth Lee

African American traditional medicine is an American classic that emerged out of the necessity of its people to survive. It began with the healing knowledge brought with the African captives on the slave ships and later merged with Native American, European and other healing traditions to become a full-fledged body of medicinal practices that has lasted in various forms down to the present day.

Working the Roots: Over 400 Years Of Traditional African American Healing is the result of first-hand interviews, conversations, and apprenticeships conducted and experienced by author Michele E. Lee over several years of living and studying in the rural South and in the West Coast regions of the United States. She combines a novelist's keen ear for storytelling and dialogue and a healer's understanding of folk medicine arts into a book that makes for both pleasant, interesting reading, and serves as a permanent household healing guide.

Divided between sections on interviews of healers and their stories and a comprehensive collection of traditional African American medicines, remedies, and the many common ailments they were called upon to cure, Working The Roots is a valuable addition to African American history and American and African folk healing practices.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Spirituality, History, Nature, Medicine, Africa

396 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2017

Reviews

[Lekeshua]

Refreshing read. Michele E. Lee did a great job capturing the history of her family in a way that shares their strength and love for our Mother Earth. I'm beyond grateful the underdone of racism was missing. The caucasian race was mentioned but not in the sense of her family being victims but as a reference point of simple life. I miss this power being reclaimed by all the races that had to endure injustice. Lee also makes a point to display how blended her heritage and many of our heritages are and how the knowledge has been passed down and lost. Lee organized her book in two sections, the narrative of her family and the healing. I love the lesson of, "It's a shame and scandalous that a person done't try to take after the older folk and don't try and learn nothin'." This quote was spoken by Nathaniel Bears (pronounced Beers).

[Greyson]

5⭐️ I regularly use many of these old recipes and it makes me feel closer to my grandparents. I felt very cathartic reading this and participating in the recipes 😌

[Ashley Stevens]

Overall, I enjoyed this book especially the oral history interviews with the elders. As I read it, it sparked a lot of conversations with the older members in my family about any medicines they used growing up. I recall my dad making me take castor oil but as I got older he stopped.

My one critique was the Gullah/Geechee chapter which amounted to a 2-3 page chapter. As someone who is part-Geechee I was disappointed not to see that included. These interviews were conducted in the late 90s/2000s and there are Gullah-Geechee people in South Carolina and a high concentration on Sapelo Island off the Georgia coast and there’s the Pin Point community near Savannah. I don’t know her reasons for not digging deeper into this but its the main reason I deducted one star.

That aside, I would recommend to others.

[CEGatling]

An excellent resource and history. I will be referring to this again and again.

[Jasmine Harris]

An essential read for anyone dabbling in black folk medicine and rootwork. While the source of hoodoo and rootwork is unmistakably black, it is rare to find books written by or featuring the stories/histories of black practitioners. It's remarkable to hold a work so lovingly cared for and birthed by a black woman. We are all in debt to Michele Lee and the rootworkers in the book giving us back a piece of black history.

[Charletta Young]

Awesome, book! This is one of my go to books for natural/botanical remedies through tea and or skincare products such as balms and ointments. The stories and pictures from the elders were great to see and provided a sense of belonging. Love, love, love this book! Don’t wait, go ahead and get this one, you won’t be disappointed!

[Paul]

This is actually two books in one. The first part discusses the real life experiences of African American herbalists. The second part is a materia medica compiled from their work. There are some true down home "medicines" like banana peel and black tar soap.

[Mills College Library]

613.0899 L4793 2014