At a party celebrating the first day of 1974, Donna Dear, an Ohio-born military woman, met the educator Paulette Greene at her home in New York City. The connection was cosmic. Though both were in separate relationships at the time, they would soon find their way to each other, beginning a partnership that would take them overseas and across decades. After years in Asia, where Donna was stationed, the couple returned stateside, settling on Mt. Pleasant Acres Farms in Maryland, near where Paulette’s great-grandparents once lived. At the time, neither Donna nor Paulette, known to most simply as “the aunties,” knew their land held a potent history. A surge of research about twenty years ago revealed that the aunties’ farm sat on land where legendary abolitionist Harriet Tubman took members of her family out of enslavement. What’s more, a beautiful poplar tulip on the property was, in fact, The Witness Tree, a historic site where those escaping slavery would pray before their journey north.
Nearly fifty years since that brisk January afternoon, the couple are the subject of a forthcoming short film co-directed by their nieces, urban farmer, activist, and artist Jeannine Kayembe-Oro and artist and scholar Charlyn Griffith-Oro. Titled “The Aunties: From the North Star to the Poplar,” the short documentary traces the couple’s origin story, their relationship to Tubman’s legacy, and the ongoing work they do on the farm promoting climate justice in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. “As Black queer and trans people, the archive of our stories is often so small. When we’re talking about environmental justice, it’s even smaller,” said Kayembe-Oro of the project, which was produced by the Center for Cultural Power with an all-Black, queer, and femme crew. “It was a great moment to bring the aunties’ story to the Center’s platform so that more LGBTQ+ folks can find in the aunties an answer to the question, what can my future look like.”
Not long after the film made waves at the BlackStar Film Festival, we caught up with Donna Dear and Paulette Greene about the roots of their bond, the most overlooked aspects of Harriet Tubman’s legacy, and how we can all grow up to have relationships as full as theirs.
I’m so excited to speak with you both. How are you today?
Paulette Greene: We’re doing pretty good. Trying to get adjusted to Manhattan. It’s always drama in New York City. [Laughs]
You’re from the city, so you know.
Paulette Greene: Yes, I was born in the Bronx, spent time on the Upper West Side, and attended Brooklyn College. Basically, it all feels the same — just more people with more drama. It can be overwhelming, except that I’m a New Yorker, so I can handle it.
And you’re here, of course, to share The Aunties at BlackStar. What’d you think when Jeannine approached you with the idea for the film?
Paulette Greene: Well, it was a novel idea to me. Even though I grew up running the streets up in Harlem and down on Broadway, I had never conceptualized what Jeannine has been able to do. So I did not know what to expect. But because I love my niece so very much, I just went along with the flow. And as things unfolded, I began to see myself evolving further. No matter how long you live, you can still learn something, so it’s been a truly good thing.
And what’s the reception been like this weekend?
Paulette Greene: Absolutely phenomenal. This was a world premiere. And the way that they responded to us —
Donna Dear: They gravitated to us, and we gravitated towards them. When you’re approached with open arms, you can feel the love that exudes from each other and the excitement we’re feeling as we learn from each other just by being out there together.
Paulette Greene: And they loved the story. [The screening] also put us in a position of interacting with a whole ’nother generation of gay folk. Because, you know, we’ve been together for 50 years, and we’re being embraced just as much now, maybe more than we were when we were growing up.
Let’s go back in time a couple of years then. How’d you two meet?
Donna Dear: How that all started was I knew people that she knew, and they all said, “Y’all have so much in common — just meet each other.” Then she had a Do-Drop-In New Year’s Day party, and so I said, “I’ll be over.” We met that day and we’ve been in each other’s lives ever since.
Paulette Greene: I had refused to meet her prior to January 1st, 1974, because I was always accused of relationships with people that I didn’t really have.
Donna Dear: Exactly.
Paulette Greene: But I might could have had.
Donna Dear: Exactly.
Paulette Greene: I didn’t want to go through that again. But when she walked in, I said to myself, Oh my god, now what am I going to do? Because I was with somebody.
Donna Dear: And so was I.
Paulette Greene: I had been with somebody for almost 11 years. I don’t run around every other week with a different person. So it was kind of rough. But when I saw Donna, I just saw something in her that she needed somebody like me. I’m from New York City. I’m very worldly. She’s from Ohio.
Donna Dear: I wasn’t worldly.
Paulette Greene: But you were on your way to worldliness. And you like New York. When she moved to New York, she became New York. Trust me. But I knew it was going to be complicated. I didn’t know it was going to be as complicated as it was. But nobody went to jail, nobody went to the hospital, and nobody went to the cemetery. It all worked out. I remember my ex-lover saying, “Donna doesn’t want you. She just goes from place to place and loves them and leaves them.”
So I said, “Well if she doesn’t want me, then who does she want?” Oh my goodness, that was a statement I probably should have never made. [Laughs]
New York City really always has been drama, huh? [Laughs]
Donna Dear: It’s a soap opera!
Thanks so much for sharing. How'd you approach being in a gay relationship during a time in the world that was less accepting?
Donna Dear: I came out of a home where I was taught that you are never to think that you are lesser than somebody else. Simple.
Paulette Greene: Well, for me, I always maintained that I was a free individual, which meant that after leaving my mother’s house, I was not going to put myself in any position where I could be directed in a manner that made me feel less than W-H-O-L-E. So no matter where I went, what I did, I had to feel grounded. Otherwise I didn’t go. And I surrounded myself with people who could make me feel whole. I had no interest in what other people thought about my life. Did that answer your question?
Totally. What I’m understanding is that if you have a strong internal confidence in who you are, it doesn’t matter so much what’s going on around you. If you can keep that center comfortable and loving, then they can say what they say and they can do what they do, and that’s all it is.
Paulette Greene: Exactly. Even with my family, there were situations. But I just insisted that no matter what you thought of someone’s sexuality, they were somebody’s children. They were somebody’s aunt or uncle. They had worth, and you don’t reduce that because something about them makes you feel uncomfortable; that’s a personal issue. You know, my mother’s name was Ernestine, and we’d call her the Telestine Times, because she always had a lot to say. And I had a lot to say to her — not being disrespectful, but letting her know that I was strong, and that when I bring my friends around, you got some good people around you. My grandmother even met some of them, and she said, “If I had known that life was like this back in the day, you might not would’ve ever been born.” [Laughs]
Let’s switch gears. I want to talk about the historic land you all steward. How did you learn that your Maryland farm was on such sacred ground?
Paulette Greene: Well, we are involved in community organizations. And about 20 years ago, the state of Maryland began to look at heritage areas. I was on the Stories of the Chesapeake Heritage Area board. Of course, the biggest thing in Maryland has been what? Slaves, slaves, slaves. So I began meeting with people who were doing extensive research. It was through those meetings that it was revealed to us that we live on a part of a 2,167 acre property that Harriet Tubman’s parents and brothers lived on. It’s called the Dr. Anthony Thompson Plantation. I don’t like to say “plantation,” because I get goose pimples, but it is what it was.
What was it like to make that discovery?
Paulette Greene: We were absolutely stunned, and so was the community.
Donna Dear: Yeah, people say that when they turn into the driveway coming up the lane, it’s something that just comes over them, that they just feel like they’re being embraced. And then when we go back into the area of the Witness Tree, which is a tulip poplar, it’s spiritual.
Talking about the spirituality of the farm, I’m wondering how learning this connection between you and Harriet Tubman has influenced your relationship to her legacy?
Paulette Greene: Yes, it has for me. I always knew about Harriet Tubman and how she brought people out of enslavement, but she was more than that. I’ve gotten myself out of the slavery part, and now I’m focusing on what she did when she left Maryland. People mostly want to talk about the slaves being taken to freedom —
Donna Dear: First of all, you’re born free. Our ancestors were enslaved. Harriet didn’t take people to freedom; she took people out of enslavement. They were already free.
Paulette Greene: Exactly. Harriet Tubman’s legacy doesn’t end when she escaped enslavement. She lived a life. That’s why when people come to the farm, I want them to see what we are doing, because this is what descendants of enslaved Africans can do. This is what Harriet Tubman did. When she went to Albany, New York, she just reigned supreme. She was there for the community. She was there with the AME Church. She was an entrepreneur. She worked for the Department of Defense —
Donna Dear: And was a spy for the Union Army.
Paulette Greene: We don’t talk enough about how thinking of Harriet Tubman’s legacy just in terms of slavery continues to [mentally] enslave her descendants. You know what I mean?
I think so. You’re saying that the way we all learn about Harriet Tubman in school as solely this Moses figure leaves out a big part of her story — she doesn’t get to be a whole person, who left slavery and had a full life afterwards. Focusing on the entirety of the life she lived means highlighting how she removed the legacy of enslavement from her mind and spirit, not just her physical reality?
Paulette Greene: You’re real smart for a white girl. [Laughs]
Thanks, that means a lot coming from you. I’ve got one more question for you two. What aspects of your relationship with each other do you think would be most valuable to pass on to the next generation of folks in the life?
Donna Dear: You have to trust each other. And that’s what you build your relationship on. Love is there. But if you don’t have trust, there’s no foundation.
Paulette Greene: And you have to also have a deep respect for self — for self, and then for each other. So there’s Donna, there’s Paulette, and there’s Donna and Paulette. And that’s where the trust comes in and the respect that we are two different entities that have come together to be one. And there are times when we are each separate entities, and there are times when we are one. But whatever we do, it’s there for the whole. It’s there for the whole.
Thank you both so much for your time and for sharing so much of yourselves with me today.
Donna Dear: Thank you very much.
Paulette Greene: It’s been a pleasure.
On October 14, 2023, Donna Dear and Paulette Greene will be hosting a screening of “The Aunties,” at Mt. Pleasant Acres Farms in Preston, Maryland. titled Soulfest X We Will Be Elders, the all ages-event will also include meditations with the “Witness Tree" as well as interactive land and spirit consecrations. The gathering will take place from 3-8pm, with the screening beginning at sunset.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
