Photo: Group photo of the descendants of enslaved Matilda Ruff, along with local supporters, at the Bench by the Road placed in her honor

In a famous interview during a tour for her novel Beloved, author Toni Morrison lamented the lack of monuments to people who were enslaved into forced labor in the United States. Her comments inspired a movement to place a “Bench by the Road” in locations nationwide to memorialize those people.

One such bench was placed at the Concord Road trailhead for the Silver Comet Trail, near the place where Matilda Ruff and her family were held in slavery, on mill property below the Concord Covered Bridge. Her family included Calvin, Zeida, and Rhoda.

Last Sunday, January 26, descendants of Matilda Ruff and her family gathered at the Bench by the Road.

Tanyah Cotton organized her family’s trek to visit the bench.

The Courier asked if her family knew about Matilda Ruff and Ruff’s family before the creation of the Bench by the Road.

“Yes, we were aware,” Cotton said. “And then Pat (Burns of the Friends of the Concord Covered Bridge) contacted my older sister, and after that, I picked up the ball because we were looking for a place to have a family reunion, and I said, okay, let’s follow the Atlanta trail.”

“We knew about Matilda, we knew about Calvin, and we knew that my grandfather’s real name was Thomas Ruff,” she said.

The Courier asked if the reunion had been held yet.

“Oh, no, we’re still planning it,” Cotton said. “Hopefully, this is the first leg of the reunion.”

“This is a meet-and-greet, and then we’ll bring in the rest of the family,” she said.

Dave Mahloy of the Friends of the Covered Bridge delivered an introduction and said that the area surrounding the bench is named Matilda’s Garden after Matilda Ruff. He said that the plantings, which had died back for the winter, were Georgia native plants maintained by the Girl Scouts and by local volunteers.

Carol Denard, the founder and board Chair of the Toni Morrison Society, recited Morrison’s “bench by the road” quote, which inspired the placement of the benches.

“There is no place you or I can go to think about or not think about to summon the presences of or recollect the absences of slaves. There is no suitable memorial or plaque or wreath or wall or park or skyscraper lobby.”

“There’s no 300-foot tower. There’s no small bench by the road. There’s not even a tree scored, an initial, that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New York or Providence or better still on the banks of the Mississippi.”

Quanzerria Dupree, a spoken-word artist, presented the poem she had delivered during the original dedication ceremony for the bridge.

[Editor’s note: traffic noise obscures her introduction to the poem somewhat, but the poem itself cuts through the background noise, and I thought the introduction was worth preserving]

Tanyah Cotton, a descendant of Matilda Ruff, approached the bench to perform a blessing ceremony.

“This is going to be a Yoruba ceremony for our ancestors. Just quick, a quick prayer to the creator,” she said.

Background

On June 18, 2024, the day before Juneteenth, a group gathered at the Concord Road trailhead of the Silver Comet Trail to watch the unveiling of the “Bench by the Road” and Matilda’s Garden.

The bench was inspired by acclaimed author Toni Morrison’s observation that there are few monuments commemorating the lives of enslaved people.

The phrase “bench by the road” was taken from a 1989 interview in World Magazine with author Toni Morrison. Morrison said she considered her novel Beloved a monument to the generations of enslaved people who had no memorials to their experience.

That observation inspired the Toni Morrison Society to begin the Bench by the Road project.

The organization posted this excerpt from the famous Morrison interview on its web page for the Bench by the Road project:

“There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves . . . There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby. There’s no 300-foot tower, there’s no small bench by the road. There is not even a tree scored, an initial that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New York or Providence or better still, on the banks of the Mississippi. And because such a place doesn’t exist . . . the book had to.”

The Friends of the Concord Covered Bridge spearheaded the effort to place the Bench by the Road at the Silver Comet Trail, particularly due to the research and urging of Patricia Burns, who began to research Matilda Ruff and her family.

At the unveiling of the bench in 2024, Burns said, “Thirty-five years ago, when my family and I moved into this old house, in the kitchen cupboard, I discovered a tattered three-by-five note card. It bore the names Matilda, Calvin, Zeida, and Rhoda.”

“I felt in my bones those names meant something to somebody. I carefully tucked away the little card until I had time, time to explore: who is Matilda?

“A landowner along Nickajack Creek by the name of Martin Luther Ruff, got land during the land lottery of the 1830s.

“He also owned, according to the 1860 slave schedule, a black female and three children, a black boy and three little girls. Then, in the 1870 census, after emancipation, their names emerged, and they are Matilda, Calvin, Zeida, and Rhoda. Ironically, Matilda’s lot was right across the street in those woods, which is now Heritage Park.”