Carolina Built

In March 2022, Stuff by Lindsey HydeLeave a Comment

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NC author Kianna Alexander reveals the untold story of former slave Josephine Leary in her just-released book.

It’s a story that touches on bondage, emancipation, aspirations, marriage, real estate, motherhood, adversity and, most importantly, perseverance. A story that author Kianna Alexander says should be told not only outside the walls of small-town Edenton, North Carolina, but written into history books alongside the narratives of Madam C.J. Walker and Mary McLeod Bethune. And… a story that just dropped in bookstores Feb. 22—meaning readers (that means you, Raleighites) can now immerse themselves in its pages.

Carolina Built recounts the life of Josephine Leary, a woman who was born into slavery, gained freedom at age 9 and, despite lacking a formal education, started a real estate empire in Edenton (developing what would today be a $10 million real estate portfolio).

“I think it’s important to highlight the way women in general—but especially Black women—have done so much in terms of either unheralded or unpaid labor that other people benefit from even generations later,” says Alexander. “And this sort of struck me as a story that highlighted that to the nth degree.”

A native North Carolinian, history buff and multipublished novelist, Alexander says Leary’s story had not always been on her radar. In fact, it sort of fell into her lap in 2019 via Twitter, when she saw a tweet from a literary agent asking for someone to write Leary’s story. Alexander volunteered, recalling how, in that moment, she felt it was her duty to tell the story, especially since Leary has no living relatives. 

Before sitting down to write, Alexander conducted research for about a year. She spent hours poring over documents Leary’s grandson had donated to Rubenstein Library at Duke University and visiting Edenton, where she—in a way—walked in Leary’s footsteps, visiting things like her building and some of her properties, as well as her family’s homes and barbershop. 

“As a writer, that’s what I like to do whenever it’s possible—to see things, to engage my five senses in person so I can really get a feel for the story I’m trying to tell,” says Alexander, who first thought about becoming a writer in high school when her then-drama teacher read a play she wrote and said, “You are a writer.”  

And like all great writers, she had a method for turning someone else’s story into a novel. “It was gathering it all, bringing it home—the copies, the images, the notes—compiling it, building sort of a timeline of her life, narrowing it down to the 20 years that I was going to write about, and then putting all the pieces in order,” she says. 

Piece by piece (actually, index card by index card), Alexander wove together the moments of Leary’s life. “It’s a mirror, and it’s a window looking into her life,” she says, noting that many of the obstacles Leary had to overcome are still relevant today. 

“I hope it’s going to touch people the way it touched me just to find out everything she went through and everything she accomplished,” says Alexander. “I was really just impressed and amazed with everything she was able to do. She was really a remarkable person.” Book and audio version available online, as well as at Target, Walmart and Barnes & Noble; authorkiannaalexander.com

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