[OHGEN-L] Fw: For African Americans- Uncovering a
by Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman
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FORWARDED MESSAGE - Orig: 16-Apr-99 11:19
Subject: For African Americans- Uncovering a Painful Past/(C)Time Apr
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From: "John Cramer" <John.Cramer(a)das.state.oh.us>
"Time" magazine $3.50- April 19,1999 pages 54 through 68.
www.time.com
.For African Americans- Uncovering a Painful Past
BY SANDRA LEE JAMISON
.
Slaves like these gathered during the Civil War may be
the
connection between an African past and an American
present
. It is easier for African-Americans to talk about their
roots these days than it was even a decade ago.
People then didn't openly debate the slave
descendants of Thomas Jefferson, discuss black
slave owners or see whites sitting alongside blacks
searching for their shared African ancestors.
. Since the first broadcast of the groundbreaking
1977 miniseries Roots, Hollywood, in such films as
Glory, Amistad and Beloved, has helped depict a
more complex picture of race relations in early
America. Combined with new literature and
scholarship on the African American experience
such as John Hope Franklin's Runaway Slaves, the
companion to the four-part, six-hour PBS series
Africans in America: America's Journey Through
Slavery, and Microsoft's CD-ROM encyclopedia, the
Encarta Africana, there is respect and
understanding for the lives of African ancestors.
. But this new openness cannot repair all the
damage done to the historical record of black
people, nor overcome the pain of re-creating it. For
even after slavery, segregation forced the creation of
two Americas, and family-history seekers must be
equipped to navigate in two sets of records--one
black and one white. Racial identities were
sometimes hidden as blacks "passed" from one
race for societal survival. Military records, church
archives, city directories, newspapers and a wealth
of information from county, state and federal
government agencies have to be researched with
race in mind.
. For many, the hardest part of piecing together
individual lives of your family line is finding them
listed in the same inventories that include cattle,
plows and flatware--not just hard but gut wrenching.
. For Southern plantation owners and gentleman
farmers, enslaved Africans were simply
investments. Ledgers and diaries from their estate
archives documented who had to be fed, housed
and rationed clothing, blankets and utensils:
"Essie" received a pot, ladle and blankets for her
child, and "Mose" was hired out to a neighboring
farm.
. Practically speaking, slave transactions provide
solid genealogical connections. Slave names are
recorded in wills, bills of sale and even dowries.
Records from slave-ship cargo lists, captain's
logbooks, ship route maps, white family histories
and oral histories once available only in obscure
books and dusty archives are available today on
computer databases and widely disseminated via
the Internet and on CD-ROMS.
. And more is on the way. The University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize
deteriorating pages of diaries, autobiographies,
primary texts and slave narratives for inclusion in
the university's database.
. There are two websites valued and respected as
resources for up-to-date information and discussion
for the African ancestored. One is a website
founded by Mississippi State University, Afrigeneas
http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/History/afrigen/;
the other is Christine's genealogy website
http://www.ccharity.com.
. Today's tools certainly make the search for black
roots easier. The trick is to steel yourself for what
you are likely to find.
. Sandra Lee Jamison, a TIME research librarian, is
the author of Finding Your People END
.Copyright 1999 Time Inc. New Media. All rights reserved.
.JohnW
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