Embodied Legacy: Malcolm Davis and the Living Story of Monk Estill

To witness Malcolm Davis carry out is to witness a reclamation.

His physique, voice, and presence channel histories that had been practically misplaced—stolen by erasure, whitewashing, and cultural neglect. As a cultural activist and storyteller, Davis doesn’t simply protect Black efficiency traditions; he embodies them, respiratory new life into ancestral truths and affirming their energy in our current second.

At the core of his efficiency work is Monk Estill—an actual man who was enslaved in Kentucky within the late 1700s. Davis carried out his one-man present The Slave, Monk Estill day by day on the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Born and raised in Kentucky, Davis was deeply formed by his father, Hasan Davis, who carried out historic reenactments of Black figures in church buildings and colleges. He portrayed historic figures like York, an enslaved man from Kentucky who was a part of the Lewis and Clarke expedition, and Angus Augustus Burleigh, who fought for the Union throughout the Civil War—names lacking from many college students’ historical past books.

“I remember watching him as a kid,” Davis instructed me. “He would bring York to life in front of white kids and Black kids. And those Black kids—man, they lit up. They had never seen themselves in that way before.” It left a mark. “That’s the work I saw him doing. And that’s the work I do now.”

While Davis holds levels in theatre and political science, his work isn’t sure to academia. His artwork is rooted in group, reminiscence, and religious reflection. “I represent something bigger than me: my ancestors, my people, these stories.”

Davis facilities his performances on “Affrilachian” tradition—a time period that affirms the Black presence in Appalachia and actively counters the fable of an all-white mountain South. “There are people who are still here,” he stated. “And there are people who were pushed out violently during the Great Migration. They act like we were never part of it. But we were, and we still are.”

Monk Estill’s identify first appeared to Davis in a social media publish throughout Black History Month. “I saw his name, and I just thought, ‘Why don’t I know who this is?’” he recalled. “It bothered me. So, I started digging.”

That easy act of curiosity grew to become the catalyst for a highly effective connection. Davis started researching Estill’s life, piecing collectively what little documentation existed—from land data to native folklore. But the venture shortly grew to become greater than historic.

“I started to feel this connection,” Davis defined. “It wasn’t just academic. It was ancestral.”

Estill is remembered because the enslaved man who saved his enslaver’s life and was granted freedom. But Davis needed to dig deeper. “We know he was a skilled woodsman, an herbalist, someone who knew how to survive in nature. That’s not a side of him we’re ever taught. I wanted to tell his story not through the lens of who enslaved him—but through the lens of who he was.”

That meant not simply writing a script however taking a pilgrimage. Davis traveled to the land the place Estill lived, fasted, and sat in silence. “I asked for permission,” he stated. “And when I felt it, I knew I could begin.”

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Camera and enhancing: Por Tupsamphan

The result’s a efficiency piece that’s intimate, religious, and defiant. Davis hums, chants, prays, and weeps. He shifts between spoken phrase, gospel cadence, and Appalachian rhythm. Yet he’s clear: this isn’t a non secular efficiency.

“It’s more ancestral than religious,” Davis stated. “Working on Monk Estill’s story really made me reflect on my own spirituality, how I live, what I believe.”

That religious connection grounds the efficiency in one thing deeper than truth—it turns into a type of remembrance. “Monk Estill isn’t just a character,” he stated. “He’s an ancestor.”

Through his work, Davis challenges the continuing erasure of Black narratives in American and Appalachian historical past. “We are part of this land,” he stated. “Our people shaped these towns, these rivers, this culture. But we’ve been scrubbed from the record.”

To battle that, Davis based the Affrilachian Arts Institute, an group that helps Black Appalachian artists in reclaiming historic figures and producing their very own efficiency work.

“I’m not just here to perform—I’m here to sponsor, to support, to help others tell their stories,” he stated. That consists of monetary backing, mentorship, and serving to younger artists hint native figures from their personal hometowns, simply as Davis did with Estill.

He sees this as a type of cultural inheritance. “Young people don’t have to start from scratch,” he stated. “Their stories are already in the land—they just have to find them.”

Davis’s work serves as what students William Cross and Jean Phinney would name “identity anchors”—touchstones that affirm, reasonably than distort, Black id. For younger individuals navigating a world that devalues or flattens their tradition, such a artwork could be transformative. “It’s a healing act—for me, for them.”

He additionally emphasizes the significance of setting boundaries round that storytelling. “Sometimes people want me to perform in spaces that aren’t right. Places that don’t honor the work or the people behind it,” he stated. “And I’ve learned to say no. Because this isn’t just content. This is sacred.”

Despite some individuals being immune to this work, Davis has witnessed moments of progress. He described a mural in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, wherein, regardless of pressure over racial politics, the city voted to embrace Monk Estill’s picture. “They weren’t thinking about politics,” he stated. “They were thinking about history. And sometimes, that’s what opens the door.”

Davis believes reclaiming these tales is how we reclaim ourselves. “If we don’t tell our stories, someone else will. And they’ll get it wrong,” he stated. “We have to hold the pen.”

Whether mentoring college students, main workshops, or performing on a stage, Malcolm Davis stays rooted in that mission. “This work isn’t just about remembering the past,” he stated. “It’s about restoring what was stolen.”

Jeffrey Gerald is a program intern on the Smithsonian Folklife Festival by Urban Alliance and a current graduate of BASIS DC. A self-taught photographer and group chief, he’s captivated with cultural preservation and plans to review psychology and African American research at Bowie State University.

References

Cross, William E. Black id seen from a barber’s chair: Nigrescence and eudaimonia. Temple University Press, 2021.

Phinney, Jean S. Ethnic id in adolescents and adults: Review of analysis. Routledge, 2013.