The Legacy of ‘Cross Road Blues’: Black Horror in Four Acts
“Black horror” is a horror sub-genre that focuses on the experiences and perspectives of Black Americans, often exploring the psychological impact of living in a society where one is perceived as a threat. It often addresses systemic racism, misogyny faced by Black women, and the ways in which racism is manifested in various forms. Black horror seeks to capture the real fear of being Black in America, using exaggerated, often fantastical, elements to highlight the horrors of everyday life. It also subverts negative stereotypes and depictions of Black people in horror, portraying them as resilient and capable of fighting back.
An early example of a Black horror film is Son of Ingagi (1940), a movie with an all-Black cast in which a newlywed couple is menaced by a monster called N’Gina. The film was written by Spencer Williams, Jr. George Romero’s classic 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead” features a Black protagonist (Duane Jones) who survives a zombie horde only to be mistaken for a zombie and killed at the end. There are many other examples of Black horror across the arts and literature (see above). More recently, films like “Woman in the Yard” and “Sinners” have revitalized this genre. The latter channels blues music, as explored in my previous article.
Hoodoo Tradition
Many of the examples noted above tap into Hoodoo, an ethnoreligion that functions as a set of spiritual observances, traditions, and beliefs — including magical and other ritual practices — developed by enslaved Black people in the southern part of the United States. Many Hoodoo traditions draw from the beliefs of the Bakongo people of Central Africa. An estimated 52% of all enslaved Africans transported to the Americas via the Transatlantic slave trade came from Central African countries. These enslaved people embedded some of their beliefs, rituals and practices in their ways of living and creating (art). Hoodoo incorporates the Kongo cosmogram, Simbi water spirits, and a variety of practices.
At the Lott Farmstead in Brooklyn, NY, Kongo-related artifacts were found on the site, including a Kongo cosmogram engraved onto ceramics and nkisi bundles that had cemetery dirt and iron nails left by enslaved African Americans. Also, the cosmogram engravings were used as a crossroads for spiritual rituals by the enslaved Black American people. The Kongo cosmogram can be found in the form of a distinctive diamond-shaped, cross-marked pattern of holes found in the floor of First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia.
The origins of Afro-Christianity began with Bantu-Kongo people and it followed enslaved people into the Americas. A work published in 2013 on Hoodoo lays out a model of Hoodoo origins and development. Mojo Workin: The Old African American Hoodoo System by Katrina Hazzard-Donald discusses what the author calls:
[T]he ARC or African Religion Complex, which was a collection of eight traits that all the enslaved Africans had in common and were somewhat familiar to all held in the agricultural slave labor camps known as plantation communities. These traits included naturopathic medicine, ancestor reverence, counter-clockwise sacred circle dancing, blood sacrifice, divination, supernatural source of malady, water immersion, and spirit possession.
According to Yvonne Chireau, “Hoodoo is an African American-based tradition that makes use of natural and supernatural elements in order to create and effect change in the human experience.” The Kongo cosmogram is a map of transitions that have been followed by Black creators ‘in the know’. Many of the symbols and codes (and their meanings) are hidden from outsiders as a method of preservation as well as for protection.
Sundown Towns
Sundown towns were locations across the United States that enforced racial segregation by excluding non-whites, particularly Black Americans, through a combination of discriminatory laws, intimidation, or violence. While formal sundown laws were outlawed after the Civil Rights Act of 1968, some argue that certain modern practices perpetuate a modified form of sundown town dynamic. Sundown town practices may be evoked in the form of city ordinances barring people of color after dark, exclusionary covenants for housing opportunity, signage warning ethnic groups to vacate, unequal treatment by local law enforcement, and unwritten rules permitting harassment. Many artists have explored sundown towns as a theme for their work.
Xaviera Simmons’ ongoing “Sundown” series of artworks draw its name from sundown towns — places known to be unsafe, especially at night, for black people — and is shaped by her archival study of records of life in the Jim Crow era. In Sundown (Number Twelve), the artist appears frocked in a floral cotton dress and against a midcentury botanical backdrop that references the landscapes and products associated with exploitative systems of labor, from colonialism to American slavery. Another work switches up the foreground photograph with one from the Civil Rights era. In both 2025 films “Women in the Yard” and “Sinners” bad things often happen after sundown.
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above, “Have mercy, now, save poor Bob if you please”
“Sundown” is the first episode of the first season of HBO’s 2020 series Lovecraft Country, which features main protagonist Atticus Freeman who travels from the Jim Crow South to his South Side of Chicago hometown in search of his missing father. As he and his friends (and uncle) journey across the U.S., they encounter danger lurking after sundown. Lovecraft Country was an awesome show and I was upset when HBO cancelled it after only one season. I was so upset I cancelled my HBO subscription. Before the show I had already been writing about sundown towns and the blues.
Cross Road Blues
Some essays include “Cross Road Blues” a Mississippi Delta blues song that was written by legendary blues artist Robert Johnson. The song has become part of a mythology, as referring to a place where Johnson “sold his soul to the Devil” in exchange for musical talent. I argue that Johnson was channeling the spirits and God for protection in the song. Johnson did this by indirectly following the Kongo cosmogram (map) using what I refer to as the blues algorithm. The Kongo cosmogram consists of a circle with a cross inside that represents the continuous cycle of life, death, and rebirth, with the meeting point of the cross being a powerful point where the individual stands. In act one of “Cross Road Blues” Robert Johnson kneels at a crossroads near dusk to ask for God’s mercy.
In the second section Johnson tells of his failed attempts to hitch a ride before sundown. Blues historian Samuel Charters notes that the second verse that includes “the sun goin’ down now boy, dark gon’ catch me here” is a reference to sundown laws and Johnson’s fear of being captured and worse. In the third and fourth sections, he expresses apprehension at being stranded as darkness approaches and asks someone to tell his musician friend Willie Brown that Johnson is “sinkin’ down”:
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
That I got the crossroad blues this mornin’, Lord, baby, I’m sinkin’ down
At the end of the song, Robert Johnson predicts that he will lose his life at the cross roads after sundown. Some folklore from the Deep South identifies a crossroads as graveyard. In the Kongo cosmogram life and death are connected in an infinite cycle. The circle, like the crossroads, is a symbol that is seen throughout the African diaspora, especially in the arts and literature .Robert Johnson positions himself at the center or ‘Kalûnga’, where he calls upon God to be delivered to safety. He has lost hope of finding a way out (hitchhiking) and has accepted his fate. I have previously written about Kalûnga, which is the Kikongo word for “threshold between worlds.” It is the point between the physical world (Ku Nseke) and the spiritual world (Ku Mpemba), and it is normally represented by water.
Now tell me whatcha gonna do
When there ain’t no where to run (tell me what)
(When judgment comes for you, when judgment comes for you)
And whatcha gonna do?
When there ain’t no where to hide (tell me what)
When judgment comes for you (’cause it’s gonna come for you) — “The Crossroads” by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
The Black horror tradition has been an important aspect of life for African/Black people across the diaspora for centuries. Contained within the genre are direct links to African spirituality, Afro-Christianity, ritual, and creative expression. Also, hidden in many of the rituals and practices are the codes for survival for people who have refused to betray or compromise their own values, integrity, or beliefs, including (especially) for personal gain. This is one of the critical messages in Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners”, as well as in blues songs and its descendants (rhythm & blues, rap, etc.). I think this is why we can still see and hear the resonances of themes such as the crossroads, and the Kongo cosmogram across cultures, art forms, and genres.