Here’s a List of Books on Slavery That Kanye Should Read
Kanye West doesn’t care about books.
Tracing Your Roots: Who Left My Mother in Foster Care?
After five wonderful, fun years of helping African Americans find their ancestry on The Root, we are looking forward to carrying on the work of the Tracing Your Roots column through an ongoing collaboration with AmericanAncestors.org by the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Our new column will appear on …
Tracing Your Roots: Where Were My Black Homeowning Ancestors From?
Records reveal a proud legacy in Mississippi, yet data shows why we should not be all that surprised.
Tracing Your Roots: Help! My Great-Granddad’s Trail Ran Cold
Sometimes, following the paper trail left by a close relative of the person you’re tracing will yield better results.
Tracing Your Roots: Why Did My Family Bury the Past?
Silence shrouded information about a family’s past, and those who could provide answers are deceased. Fortunately, there’s a paper trail.
Women Write the World in All the Women in My Family Sing
Women’s History Month may have ended for the year, but women are still making history all over the world. To elevate and celebrate these all-too-often underrepresented voices, editor, activist and philanthropist Deborah Santana harnessed the talents of 69 diverse women writers for a new anthology, All the Women in My…
Tracing Your Roots: My Ancestor Was in Her Half Sister’s Dowry
Families intertwine and seemingly pass back and forth over the color line, complicating efforts to trace their origins.
Tracing Your Roots: Who Were Our Kin Before Tragedy Struck the Family?
Needing answers after a family was torn asunder by fatal acts of domestic violence.
Tracing Your Roots: My Adopted Black Daughter Wants to Know Her Origins
A white mother and black daughter encounter the genealogical “brick wall” so many people face while researching African-American families during slavery.
Tracing Your Roots: Did Racism Force My Ancestors to Hide Their Love?
Family lore about a great-grandparent’s interracial relationship lines up with clues in census records.
Tracing Your Roots: When Was My ‘Freedman’ Ancestor Freed?
A message board posting listing “freedmen” kin raises questions.
Tracing Your Roots: My Confederate Ancestor Is on Monuments; Who Did He Own?
The debate over Confederate monuments inspires one woman to find the descendants of people her memorialized ancestor enslaved.
Tracing Your Roots: Why Free Virginia Blacks Looked Over Their Shoulders
Finding Virginia forebears who lived uncertain lives in the shadow of the Nat Turner rebellion.
HBO’s Documentary King in the Wilderness Is a Chilling Portrait of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final 18 Months on Earth
“Everything you thought you knew about Martin Luther King Jr. is wrong,” says Trey Ellis, producer of the upcoming HBO documentary on King’s final 18 months of life, titled King in the Wilderness. The title of the documentary, which premiered at Sundance, is fitting considering that the civil rights activist’s final…
Angela Davis Frees Herself of Her Personal Archives, Which Go to Harvard
Angela Davis, the academic, womanist, activist and freedom fighter who has been part of the quest for black liberation and dignity for more than 50 years, has decided to give her personal effects to Harvard.
Tracing Your Roots: My Ancestor’s Census Record Is Confusing!
Here’s how to approach an unrecognized or illegible notation, as well as missing information, in a record.
Tracing Your Roots: Who Were My Kin Born During Slavery?
Differing surnames and living arrangements complicate the search for the parents of an ancestor born during Reconstruction in North Carolina.
Black History Can’t and Shouldn’t Be Relegated to a Single Month
Last year, Vice President Mike Pence commemorated the start of Black History Month by acknowledging Abraham Lincoln, a white man, for submitting the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery. Pence’s snubbing of black people happened on the same day President Donald Trump talked as if Frederick Douglass, abolitionist,…
Tracing Your Roots: Did Grandma Have Creek Indian Roots?
An ancestor identified as black reportedly spoke a language of the Creek people. The family’s paper trail reflects the complicated history of the American West.
Tracing Your Roots: Were My Ancestors Freed in a Big Court Case?
The largest manumission case in U.S. history led to a unique community in Virginia.
