Welcome to LOUIS HILTON.
A platform preserving historiography, oral history and the written word.
Inspired by the Gullah Geechee culture and the Black Midwest.
The LOUIS HILTON story is my story.
I was raised by a mother born and bred in the Midwest and a father who is a fourth-generation Hilton Head Islander.
My Midwestern and Gullah roots are an integral part of my identity.
As a military brat, home was wherever the Army sent us, but my parents never let me forget their hometowns.
East Saint Louis and Hilton Head will always feel like home. Together, they sparked my love for history and Black cities. My goal is to help preserve and share our stories—the stories of Black space and time, the stories of Louis Hilton.
This journey of preservation and love for history, particularly microhistory, is the driving force behind Louis Hilton.
Louis Hilton is a platform and space dedicated to historiography, oral history and the written word.
Through this space I hope to provide cultural and social emancipation, creating a domain and repository of Black thought and creativity.
At times this space will expand and contract. It will ebb and flow as I aim to invent and reinvent. Just like myself—and many others—this space will transcend categories as I seek to express different facets of myself, my background, and the microhistories of others through the written word.
Here’s to places and spaces like East Saint Louis and Hilton Head. Here’s to the people who labored. Here’s to history and those who made it.
Welcome to Louis Hilton.