This excerpt from the Waterbearers by Sasha Bonét tells part of the story of artist and filmmaker Camille Billops. Told as a series of “tributaries”, the Waterbearers is a transformative work of American storytelling that reimagines not just how we think of Black women, but how we think of ourselves—as individuals, parents, communities, and a country. Published September 2025 by Penguin Random House.
Tributary #88
I
In 1961 at six o’clock on a spring morning in Los Angeles a group of Black women convene at the middle-class home of the family matriarch. There was probably tea and hushed whispers so as to not wake the child who rested in the next room.