Nahunta: Mi Gente

david simonton's black and white photo of a white painted wood door with an intact glass window left ajar on what seems to be the screened in rear or side porch of a worn, possibly abandoned clapboard house. the screen netting sags between slats on the left, the worn off paint on the right, some lumber and dirt and light debris on the porch floor, and a couple of laundry lines suspended across the space up top. taken, simonton says, between 1993 and 2011, in nahunta, nc
David Simonton, Nahunta, Wayne County, NC, photo: davidsimonton.com via @thephotoregistry

I learned of David Simonton’s photographs of a disappearing North Carolina on tumblr, where I noticed the caption of this picture first , “Nahunta, Wayne County, NC” and the details of the image second.

Because we have some people from there, a ways back. And when a name like Mozingo turns up in Nahunta in your family history, it sticks in your mind.

And now I want to make Nahunta: Mi Gente t-shirts, which me and maybe like one cousin would appreciate.

Or maybe I need to make a new visit. Maybe the Nahunta Pork Center is just the most front-facing participant of a larger hardworking community of pork processors and their families. They are no less me gente than the farmers I came from.

a light brown-skinned male torso wears a kelly green short sleeved t-shirt with nahunta mi gente in blue and yellow text across the chest, a mockup for a design based on a tumblr comment that popped into my head upon seeing the name of a rural north carolina town where some of my ancestors once lived in the caption of a photo.