Red Brick Dust

Red brick dust is ground brick, and it is one of the oldest protective materials in the African American South: a swept doorstep scrubbed with it and salt is the standard barrier against harm crossing a threshold. The brick itself is ordinary building material, which is the point - the tradition works with what a poor household has - and the red colour, the fired clay and the association with the old brick of the quarters all carry meaning in the practice. Long's study of the spiritual-supply trade records it becoming a bottled product in the twentieth century, sold alongside the oils and washes it had always accompanied.

The dust is scrubbed into the front step and the walk with a wash, or laid down in a line across a threshold, a windowsill or a property line; it is also carried in a packet and used in tricks. The barrier is renewed, sometimes weekly, and it is usually paired with salt, with war water, or with a written petition under the step. The tradition reads a barrier that will not hold as a sign that something else is wrong in the house.

Red brick dust is one of the few materials in this file that is harmless in itself, and the ethical weight falls on the use: it is a barrier, not an attack, and the tradition does not use it against a person. It stains masonry, paint and pale stone permanently, which matters when the threshold belongs to a landlord or a neighbour rather than to the worker.