An introduction to this #AfroBeing

Afro Being is a claimed space for the Black southern body politic. Who we be and where we at.

My father, the late Thomas L. Gaines Sr., was a master story teller. He serves as one of my richest creative muses.

I am Melonee Griggs, teacher, writer, filmmaker, and somebody’s mama. I grew up around stories and fascinating tales of grand elders. My father, the late Thomas L. Gaines Sr. was a master storyteller. Funny, charismatic, and onerous, he revealed a landscape part history, part folklore of our Southern existence. He always seemed to be telling stories.

My mother, Catherine, is a woman with no middle name but in between the space of her first and last is the family history of her people. As descendants of Robert E. Lee, she blessed us with stories of our family and the village she grew up in southwestern Mississippi.

I hope to share some of these stories with you and a lot more I pick up along this film-making journey.