[photo credit: City of Pasadena]
“Conjure traditions” describes a set of African-diasporic spiritual and healing practices rooted in the knowledge of enslaved Black people. Drawing on herbs, charms, ritual acts, and forms of divination, these practices were used to ward off harm, influence fortune, pursue justice, and preserve a sense of agency and communal well-being in the face of slavery and ongoing oppression.
The talk, part of the library’s partnership with the Library Speakers Consortium, takes place during Black History Month (running through February).
Stewart’s book, “The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic,” published in July by Legacy Lit, was named a Kirkus Best Book of 2025 and appeared on NPR’s and BookRiot’s best-of lists. It runs 400 pages.
Stewart, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Memphis, argues that conjure — a practice combining West African spiritual beliefs with herbal remedies and local resources — was far more than folk religion. It was, in her account, a system of knowledge that shaped American medicine, food and textiles across four centuries.
The book spans the era of slavery through Jim Crow. It tells the stories of enslaved women Stewart describes as Negro Mammies who developed herbal expertise, Voodoo Queens and Blues Women of the Reconstruction period, and the Granny Midwives and textile weavers who, Stewart writes, used their craft to protect civil and reproductive rights during Jim Crow.
“I’m interested in how Black women used magic, used conjure to create a sense of safety in their communities,” Stewart said in an interview with Ms. Magazine. “It was a type of luck management.”
Stewart, who is also the author of “The Politics of Black Joy” and holds a 2021 Michael Beaney Prize, said one goal of the new book is to reframe how Americans understand the origins of products and traditions they encounter daily. She was born and raised in Louisiana and joined the University of Memphis philosophy department in 2017, according to the university’s website.
“One of the things I’m trying to do with this book is to debunk the scariness and the association with evil that comes out of conjure,” Stewart said in the same interview, “because when you look at Black culture, it’s present in so many of the sayings, superstitions, and practices that we use everyday, even though it’s been rejected in these Christian spaces.”
Kirkus gave the book a starred review. NPR described the work as bringing scholarly rigor to an underexamined area of American history, according to the publisher’s review excerpts. Publishers Weekly also praised the book, according to the publisher.
The talk will take place Thursday, February 12, from 11 a.m. to noon. It is free and open to anyone who registers in advance. Attendees may submit questions for Stewart. Registration is available at libraryc.org/pasadenalibrary. For more information, call the Pasadena Public Library at 626-744-4066.
Pasadena Public Library. For more information, call (626) 744-4066 or visit libraryc.org/pasadenalibrary.
