“As Donna walked around Boston’s inner-city streets, she began to encounter earthbound and unfamiliar spirits all the time, many of whom lived tragic lives and were now experiencing turmoil in the spirit realm. Some had even lived in isolated housing projects like Donna’s Columbia Point and had been murdered, forgotten, and were now haunting their former neighborhoods.
“ 'I remember there was a killing not far from me where I used to live, off of Dudley Street. I walked through the area, and I felt the person who got killed — his spirit there. I literally felt that spirit. And I walked through the area, and there was no memorial, no shrine or nothing, but I said — someone died here. This person is angry. This person wants revenge. Sure enough, about a year later, someone died on that same spot, that same spot that I felt the presence of that person …'
“One of the places Donna began to notice spirits whom Toni Morrison famously referred to in Beloved as the 'black and angry dead' was on Roxbury street corners, near makeshift shrines for young men and women who had died far before their time. Near the teddy bears, candles, and handwritten notes left for the deceased, Donna was conscious of furious spirits whispering in the ears of loved ones.
“ 'I see spirits who have passed away and got killed in street violence, wanting to avenge their deaths. They will go to the weakest [living] person in that group and be on them so much that that person will avenge their death. I’ve been where I’ve came through the city and saw shrines and will see the dead person’s spirit talking to one of their friends, standing there crying, wanting that person to avenge their death. And it will be an ongoing cycle.'
“This 'spirit of death' even sustained the criminal justice system. 'I went to the Roxbury courthouse one time, and I saw the spirit of death. I kept seeing him follow three boys, individual boys, and I said death is calling them, and I had to walk out of the courthouse and start praying for those three boys’ souls that I saw. These murdered spirits sometimes go to the weakest link, the one who’s grieving the most for them, the one who wants to avenge them.' Watching young Black and Latinx children being manipulated by unfamiliar spirits was, in part, how Donna came to understand how certain banished realities haunt social institutions and the people attempting to survive within them.”
