The Power of the Tongue: From Walker's Point to Congo Square

Brandon. That was the name of the host whose birthday celebration I attended 12 days before Christmas 2025. The party occupied a penthouse within a haunted landmark in Walker’s Point—a neighborhood of industrial bones and artistic nerves, currently caught in the sweeping tide of gentrification east of I-43. As I climbed the creaky stairs, my feet sinking into layers of dusty, forgotten carpeting, I felt a strange dissonance. I viewed the location as an odd choice for a celebration, yet I moved upward in good faith, never anticipating that I would descend those stairs forever changed.

Donnie Claybrooks-Carter: Reporter, seeker, and narrator of “The Power of the Tongue”

While other guests surrendered to tequila and card games, I sought out Brandon. I pulled him away from the noise, the weight of a seven-month curiosity finally demanding release. We remained well-acquainted but distant, though we shared a constellation of mutual friends. Our paths last crossed during Memorial Day weekend in Chicago. A mutual friend’s partner fell ill, leaving Brandon and me to navigate the city alone. Throughout our conversation that night, he punctuated his thoughts with the word Ashe. When I finally questioned him, he offered a simple definition: “It’s like saying Amen.” A rhythmic affirmation meaning I receive or I believe. Eager for the night to begin, I accepted the answer and moved on.

Ashe. That single word haunted me for the next seven months. It began appearing in the digital margins of my life—flickering across YouTube comment sections and surfacing in Instagram reels as the algorithm sensed a hunger I hadn’t yet named. I watched videos of figures I now recognize as practitioners, though at the time, they were merely shadows of an ancient world calling my name. I sensed a connection to Hoodoo and Voodoo, but the depth eluded me. Brandon didn’t fit my mental image of a practitioner; I knew him as spiritual, but certainly not a traditional Christian, but he remained a mystery. I, too, occupied the space between. After drifting through the philosophies of Buddhism, Hinduism, and witchcraft, nothing sat right. I maintained a private relationship with God but refused the narrow boxes of formal religion. I assumed I existed in a vacuum—until I searched for like-minded souls.

Candid moment between reporter, Donnie Claybrooks-Carter and Priestess Miriam Chamani inside her business the Voodoo Spiritual Temple.

First Spiritualist Church. This was the sanctuary I frequented starting in August 2025. It offered the closest reflection of my inner landscape, yet a persistent awkwardness trailed me through the pews. More often than not, I stood as the only person of color in the room. Even when I wasn’t, I remained the only person of color cut from my specific cloth. Beyond our shared spiritual tenets, we held little in common. I attended begrudgingly, driven by a desperate need for community, however mismatched it felt.

However, I couldn’t shake the persistent feeling of isolation that echoed worship spaces from my past. While racial dynamic and cultural dissonance made me feel out of place at First Spiritualist, it was my sexuality that bore the brunt of my rejection in churches like Macedonia and Christian Faith during my childhood. No one ever walked up to me directly and said, “You’re gay and you can’t attend here.” They didn’t have to. The sermons, the judgmental eyes, and the unwelcoming environment spoke volumes for what their lips left unsaid. Compounded by attending private schools throughout my entire academic career, there was no escaping the lingering message that something was inherently wrong with me because of who I loved. Since adolescence, I craved a space where I could worship as my authentic self and be accepted—a sanctuary where I felt genuinely connected to the message, rather than constantly forcing my way in. I grew up feeling like an intruder in spaces that had invited me inside, a heavy weight that followed me into spiritual environments for most of my life.

That ended on December 13, 2025. Standing across from Brandon, I finally confessed my spiritual displacement and questioned why Ashe seemed tethered to what I once perceived as dark magic. My story resonated with him. He revealed his own journey toward African Spirituality—a mirroring of my own search for a pulse that felt familiar. I listened with widened eyes, carefully masking the judgment that flickered within. But as he spoke, the logic became undeniable. Within the hour, I transitioned from a man who feared he was dancing with the devil to a seeker ordering a lifeline from Amazon: Reclaiming the Power of Hoodoo by Alisha J. Brown.

Crescent City Conjure, the business where Laurita Marie uses her talents.

Slavery. Alisha J. Brown’s words acted as a key, unlocking the realization that Hoodoo is a closed practice—a spiritual inheritance reserved for those whose ancestors survived the Middle Passage. While we often dissect the systemic and governmental scars of slavery, we rarely touch the spiritual marrow. We acknowledge the attempt to break the Black spirit, yet we ignore how that trauma manifests in our modern rituals—even in the way a figure of authority might assault a subordinate for minor disobedience, a lingering echo of the overseer. I see the intellectual circles discussing why we run when we laugh, as if joy were a fugitive emotion we dare not display. But the conversation stops at the water’s edge. In the Black community, questioning the Bible remains the ultimate transgression. As a gay man, I am well-acquainted with being shunned. We extend grace to the dealer, the pedophile, and the murderer, yet we condemn the homosexual to a swift and certain hell. This rejection of my personhood was the true spark of my religious exodus. I spent my winter break immersed in Brown’s work and my own personal research, realizing I had finally found the context I had been missing and knowing I could leverage my upcoming Journalism immersion course to take this discovery even further.

Greenland. That is where the majority of the students voted to go. In a class of seven, the tally fell 4-3 against my vision. The destination was student-voted, and the political climate of the Arctic was an objective, fascinating draw; a part of me truly desired to see it. But my soul was not called to the ice; it was called to the heat. Before a single ballot was even cast, I leaned into the power of the tongue, a tool I was only just beginning to understand through the lens of Hoodoo. I spoke as if the decision were already finalized, visualizing the iron-wrought balconies of the South and conducting mock interviews in my mind, willing the universe to align with my necessity. Following the vote, our instructor did what she had only done once before: she split the curriculum to allow for two trips. I watched the others prepare for the north, while I turned my gaze toward the humid, ancient soil that had been calling me since that night in Walker’s Point.

While in New Orleans, many lessons were bestowed upon me. The greatest lesson unfolds in my story with Priestess Miriam, who highlights the essential starting point of a spiritual journey and the internal work that must take place before walking the path of African Spirituality. In another encounter with my fraternity brother, I learned that not everyone tapped for this path is truly prepared for the weight of the journey. Through my conversation with Brandi Kelley, I gained the perspective needed to soften my heart toward Christians, their faith, and their values. The true beauty across the spectrum of African Spirituality is that it does not demand the rejection of other beliefs; Hoodoo itself was historically practiced directly alongside Catholicism. Ultimately, you create the rules, you set the boundaries, and you command the magic.

Jesse Brunet: A Cajun-born voodoo priest whose contribution resonated with the author.

Invaluable. My time in New Orleans transcended reporting; it was a homecoming. Whether I was connecting with a fraternity brother, finding a mirror of my own experience in Laurita Marie, or standing in the sacred dust of Congo Square with Dr. Ina Fandrich, the connection felt ancestral. What began as a spiritual journey amplified into a discovery of a lineage I didn’t know I owned. As you move through these words, you are stepping into a landscape where the past breathes through the present. I am painting a picture with the impressions and whispers of those who live between the worlds, and my hope is that as the ink unfolds, your own heart might find a door you didn’t know was locked. I have stepped through the veil, and the shadows have finally begun to speak. Welcome to the discovery.