Slavery's Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation

by Jill Strauss (Editor), Dionne Ford (Editor), Dionne Ford (Preface by), Jill Strauss (Introduction), Shannon LaNier (Contribution by)

Overview

Race remains a potent and divisive force in our society. Whether it is the shooting of minority people by the police, the mass incarceration of people of color, or the recent KKK rallies that have been in the news, it is clear that the scars from the United States’ histories of slavery and racial discrimination run too deep to simply be ignored. But what are the most productive ways to deal with the toxic and torturous legacies of American racism?

Slavery’s Descendants brings together contributors from a variety of racial backgrounds, all members or associates of a national racial reconciliation organization called Coming to the Table, to tell their stories of dealing with America’s racial past through their experiences and their family histories. Some are descendants of slaveholders, some are descendants of the enslaved, and many are descendants of both slaveholders and slaves. What they all have in common is a commitment toward collective introspection, and a willingness to think critically about how the nation’s histories of oppression continue to ripple into the present, affecting us all.

The stories in Slavery’s Descendants deal with harrowing topics—rape, lynching, cruelty, shame—but they also describe acts of generosity, gratitude, and love. Together, they help us confront the legacy of slavery to reclaim a more complete picture of U.S. history, one cousin at a time. 

Funding for the production of this book was provided by Furthermore, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund (https://www.furthermore.org).


 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978800762
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	05/10/2019
Edition description:	None
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

Jill Strauss teaches conflict resolution at Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York. 

Dionne Ford is the author of Finding Josephine. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, More, LitHub, Rumpus, and Ebony, and has won awards from the National Association of Black Journalists and the Newswomens’ Club of New York. 
 

Table of Contents

Foreword: Coming to the Table Lucian K. Truscott IV xi

Introduction Dionne Ford Jill Strauss 1

Part l Uncovering History

1 President in the Family Shannon Lanier 9

2 So Many Names A. B. Westrick 13

3 The Will, the Woman, and the Archive Catherine Sasanov 23

4 Overcoming Amnesia: How I Learned the Forgotten History of Two Families Linked by Slavery Bill Sizemore 35

5 Oregon's Slave History R. Gregory Nokes 47

6 Seed of the Fancy Maid Rodney G. Williams 54

Part II Making Connections

7 State Line Antoinette Broussard 65

8 The Plantation Cake Leslie Stainton 73

9 Am I Black? Eileen Jackson 81

10 The Immeasurable Distance between Us Thomas Norman DeWolf 87

11 Making Connections Karen Branan 93

12 A Millennial Facing the Legacies of Slavery Fabrice Guerrier 102

Part III Working Toward Healing

13 Standing on the Shoulders of My Ancestors Tammarrah Lee 111

14 So Close and So Far Away Elisa D. Pearmain 118

15 Born Both Innocent and Accountable: A Moral Reckoning Debian Marty 124

16 The Terretts of Oakland Plantation: An Essay of Atonement David Terrett Beumée 137

17 Not a Wound Too Deep Karen Stewart-Ross 149

18 To See: The Blindness of Whiteness Sara Jenkins 158

Part IV Taking Action

19 Digging Up the Woodpile Sharon Leslie Morgan 169

20 On Being Involved Stephanie Harp 179

21 Changing the Narrative Joseph McGill, Jr. 188

22 Tangled Vines: A Bloodline Shaped by Slavery Grant Hayter-Menzies 193

23 A Dream Deferred along Holman's Creek Sarah Kohrs 202

24 A Tale of Two Sisters Betty Kilby Fisher Baldwin Phoebe Kilby 212

Afterword: What a Legacy of Slavery and Racism Has to Do with Me Jill Strauss 225

Postscript: From Branches to Roots Dionne Ford 228

Acknowledgments 233

Bibliography 235

Notes on Contributors 239

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

Fordham Magazine mention of Slavery's Descendants edited by Jill Strauss and Dionne Ford

Fordham Magazine

'"They were once America’s cruelest, richest slave traders. Why does no one know their names?" by Hannah Natanson

Washington Post

In these moving essays, we see the testaments of journeys made by both descendants of enslavers and descendants of the enslaved to reckon with pain of the past, and look beneath the skin of the present for healing. Using poetry, essay, oral history, genealogical shard, these writings bear witness to the search to find and give language to our tangled, fraught, but ultimately shared history. Puzzling through the intimate histories that link us as Americans to one another— though often violent or painful— each writer here finds a way of knowing the past that offers the present more freedom, more hope.  Here are stories told at a human scale, full of longing, honesty, grief, and also hope. In a difficult time, these writers lay down these meditations in the hope of a better, freer future for all of us. Their efforts are paths we would do well to follow. They offer us a chance for greater wholeness, too.

author of The Forage House - Tess Taylor

Interview with Jill Strauss and Dionne Ford, Slavery's Descendants and Coming to the Table
https://networks.h-net.org/node/11465/pages/5424505/interview-jill-strauss-and-dionne-ford-slaverys-descendants-and-coming

H-Net

In its first-hand chronicles of courage, rage, forgiveness, and the solace of an embrace, Slavery’s Descendants unleashes powerful emotions. Full of hard-won wisdom, this book also captures the painful ambiguities our past fastens on us. "I want revelation," one participant says, "and yet, I dread it, too."
 

author of The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White - Henry Wiencek

'"They were once America’s cruelest, richest slave traders. Why does no one know their names?" by Hannah Natanson

Washington Post

05/24/2019

In this powerful collection of personal accounts of reflection and reconciliation, editors Ford and Strauss bring together short testimonies from descendants of slaveholders, slave traders, and slaves who recount their various experiences and epiphanies in discovering their connections to slavery in their own family histories and their need to relate their stories as a means of coming to terms with the legacy of slavery and racism. All of the contributors are members of Coming to the Table (CTTT), a national organization working toward racial reconciliation by—in its own words—uncovering history, making connections, working toward healing, and taking action. The editors organize the book on those four themes. The accounts collectively show how sharing one's past can be liberating, for in discovering truths about their pasts, the contributors also uncovered truths about themselves. Reading such accounts invites readers to find their own connections to slavery and confront its legacies, and the editors provide guides for such inquiries. In that regard, the essays become conversion narratives promising reconciliation and perhaps even redemption by engaging history rather than running from it. VERDICT A thoughtful collection providing additional insight into new perspectives on slavery.—Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia

Library Journal