The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic

One of BookRiot’s Best New Nonfiction Out in July, a crucial telling of U.S. history centering the Black women whose magic gave rise to the rich tapestry of American culture we see today--from Vicks VapoRub and Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix, to the magic of Disney’s The Little Mermaid (2023), and the all-American blue jean.

Emerging first on plantations in the American South, enslaved conjure women used their magic to treat illnesses. These women combined their ancestral spiritual beliefs from West Africa with local herbal rituals and therapeutic remedies to create conjure, forging a secret well of health and power hidden to their oppressors and many of the modern-day staples we still enjoy.

In The Conjuring of America, Black feminist philosopher Lindsey Stewart exposes this vital contour of American history. In the face of slavery, Negro Mammies fashioned a legacy of magic that begat herbal experts, fearsome water bearers, and powerful mojos--roles and traditions that for centuries have been passed down to respond to Black struggles in real time. And when Jim Crow was born, Granny Midwives and textile weavers leveled their techniques to protect our civil and reproductive rights, while Candy Ladies fed a generation of freedom crusaders.

Sourcing firsthand accounts the of enslaved, dispatches from the lore of Oshun, and the wisdom of beloved Black women writers, Stewart proves indisputably that conjure informs our lives in ways remarkable and ordinary. Above all, The Conjuring of America is a love letter to the magic Black women used to sow messages of rebellion, freedom, and hope.

Lindsey Stewart is a Black feminist philosopher and an Assistant Professor of philosophy at the University of Memphis. She is the author of The Politics of Black Joy. Her work has been featured in Blavity, Signs, Hypatia, and the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, and sheholds a 2021 Michael Beaney Prize. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee.