Weaving tales about culture

Storytellers, or griots, pass on African-American history and heritage

By Ericka Blount Danois | Special to the Sun

August 3, 2008

Janice Curtis Greene, a member of the Griot Circle of Maryland, tells a story about an eagle who thinks he's an ugly chicken during a Juneteenth event. (Steve Ruark, Special to the Sun / June 21, 2008)

On a recent hot day, a group gathers under a cool makeshift tent on the grass at New Waverly United Methodist Church in Baltimore. The smells of barbecue from a grill behind the gathering place draw the attention of many, but most are there to listen to African-American fables and folk tales.

Griot Janice Curtis Greene, a natural kind of woman with long locks pulled into a ponytail and Ghanaian Akan symbols hanging from her ears, takes the stage.

"Do you want a story?" she beckons into the microphone.

The audience responds, "Yes, I do!"

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Mary Carter Smith and Linda Goss founded the National Association of Black Storytellers (NABS) in 1984.

Smith, who died last year at 88, was a Baltimore City Public School teacher for 32 years, and for 25 years, she hosted a Saturday morning radio program, Griot for the Young and the Young at Heart.

Affectionately called "Mother Mary," she was named the official Griot of Baltimore City in 1983, and eight years later became the official Griot of Maryland.

Goss is the "Official Storyteller" for the city of Philadelphia.

The women founded "In the Tradition," the National Black Storytelling Festival and Conference, which NABS hosts annually. The first festival of black storytellers was held at Morgan State University in 1983. This year, the event will be held in Cincinnati. For more information, go to nabsinc.org.

"Well, you're in luck; here comes that story, just for you," she says as she begins the tale about the struggles of an ugly, hapless eagle who thought he was a chicken. Throughout the performance, her animation sparks the imagination of an audience that hangs on her every word.

The story goes that a heavy wind carried an eagle's egg into the nest of a chicken and a baby eagle was born thinking that because he was different, with huge talons and a hooked bill, that he was ugly.

Greene runs in place as she explains how the eagle tried out for the chicken football team in an attempt to fit in. She also explains how the mother chicken loved her son regardless of his looks.

Greene is one of many Baltimore-area storytellers who, throughout the year at various festivals, schools, libraries and other events, tell tales that have a moral. In June, they assembled for a day of barbecuing, fun and fables as part of a Juneteenth celebration.

Storytelling is an art told through words, dance and crafts. The "griots" say the stories have been told from one generation to the next to spread ethnocentric pride, heritage and culture to African-Americans.

"I tell motivational stories to teens in city schools all over the U.S. I figured they don't sing the blues, they rap," says Greene, who has been a professional storyteller for the past 15 years after retiring from the Social Security Administration in Baltimore County, where she worked for 35 years.

"The original story [on this day] is called 'The Egg That Sang the Blues.' I just brought it up-to-date," says Greene.

Greene, like so many other Baltimore-area storytellers, is a member of the Griot Circle of Maryland, which is an affiliate of the National Association of Black Storytellers, founded by Baltimorean Mary Carter Smith and her friend Linda Goss, author of an anthology of folk tales, Talk That Talk, among other books.

"You see our diversity," Goss says. "How we sing our stories, we dance our stories, we create story quilts. You see the different ways we create our stories."

Storytelling has been a part of the black community for centuries - from the griot in Africa to the itinerant bluesman, from the lyrical preacher to the camaraderie formed by men in the barbershop. Even today, pop artists tell stories through rhythmic boasts.

During the days of slavery, storytelling helped to break up the monotony of field labor and was a way to pass down important family histories, Goss says.

Storytelling helped to maintain a threatened culture.

Today, stories continue to be passed down by historians, writers, quilters, artists, dancers, musicians and vocal artists. And there are still those who tell tales at the dinner table.

I was raised on "fried apples, pinto beans, cornbread and storytelling," says Goss, who was born in Tennessee near the Great Smoky Mountains.

She became a storyteller through the inspiration of her grandfather, whom she calls "Granddaddy Murphy." He worked on a plantation even after slavery was over and later became a janitor going to work every day with a three-piece suit, a cream straw hat, a pocket watch and two-tone shoes.

He was a proud man who never learned to read or write.