Dr. Essie P. Knuckle, the author of Slate Hill-1949; My Five-Year-Old Memories of my Family and Slate Hill, A Community in Roanoke, VA, wrote these memories to provide information for descendants of Slate Hill who never had the opportunity to witness the thriving black community that now has mostly been demolished by so-called progress. Her memories and experiences as a preschooler are presented as she experienced her people and her community. It was her intention to reveal her personal memories as she had experienced through the eyes of a five-year-old Black female growing up doing the period of World War II and intense segregation. This little Black girl’s experiences were characteristic of growing up in a thriving community with a Black cultural experience. She was born in Roanoke County, Slate Hill to the now late Dallas W. Sr. and Claudia Proax. Her maternal great-grandparents, James W. and Mattie Jordan Brown, and parental great-grandparents, Sparrow and Alice Wade Arrington played a significant role in her development.
Dr. Knuckle graduated valedictorian in 1963 from Carver High School in Salem and earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at VSC and a Ph. D from Howard University. She is a retired licensed psychologist and spent the majority of her work career at the Lorton Penitentiary, DC Department of Corrections, and at Corrections Corp. of America. She brought to her career the standards and principles from her family and community, having been taught to understand all people in life, no matter whether it was in higher education or in a criminal reality. It was her experience that all people are creatures of what they are taught in their families and in their communities. She carried to her career experiences from her family and community and used these skills to help develop unrecognized intelligence, undeveloped skills, and hidden talents that had been assets in her family and community.
Her book conveys real oral life lessons from her formerly enslaved great-grandfather and a great-aunt who retained her cultural language from another continent and also exposes the racial discrimination of her maternal great-grandmother and some prejudices and racial bias from the majority culture toward other family members. However, her parents taught her to be aware of a person’s differences and experiences because people are who their families and communities have taught them to be during their developmental years. She was taught to not allow anyone to define who she was as a child and what she may become as an adult thereby shaping her into the knowledgeable and resilient female she is today.
