Climate-induced disasters are rapidly washing away U.S. coastal Black Freedmen’s Towns in the American South. Emergency managers and government officials have questioned the feasibility of restoring these communities, citing the likely threat of their erasure due to rising water levels and the increasing frequency of climate-related disasters. To date, scholarship on the establishment of Freedmen’s Towns has presented a flat narrative, grounding the historical record in damage-centered ways: that Black people were forced to purchase land in environmentally unstable areas. We imagine parallel universes—strength amidst challenge, resistance amidst racial injustice. Drawing from asset-based frameworks enables us to consider Black people’s cultural and spiritual connections to water. We draw connections between West African religious customs and spoken words of the enslaved in the U.S. to provide a clearer perspective on the creation and use of Freedmen’s Towns. We bring these theoretical frameworks to the water’s edge, enabling us to traverse parallel universes and radically reassess agency and injustice in Freedmen’s Towns.