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In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past [NOOK Book]
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In this companion book to a two-part PBS series, Gates (Colored People) combines rigorous historical research with DNA analysis to recreate the family trees of African-American celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones, as well as intellectuals, authors, comedians, musicians and athletes. Most of the subjects knew very little about ancestors as recent as grandparents, to say nothing of the information DNA results provided about their African and European ancestry. Gates connects gaps in ancestral knowledge to the fundamental evil of the American slave era, when slave owners and sellers purposely "robbed black human beings of... all aspects of civilization that make a human being 'human': names, birth dates, family ties." Though the book relies too heavily on the notion that knowing one's ancestry leads to a better understanding of aspects of one's own personality, Gates proves in case after case that the past brings itself to bear on the present. In Chris Rock's case, had he known he had a 19th-century ancestor who had served as a South Carolina legislator, "it might have taken away the inevitability that I was going to be nothing." (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Harvard historian Gates argues that family history has a special place in African American culture, in part because the American institution of slavery allowed for the creation of precious few records of African Americans' lives. By detailing individuals' stories, he writes, we may tell an important part of the larger American story. In these genealogies, Gates uses the search for the family history of 19 notable African Americans to form a narrative that goes beyond family lore. He illuminates the technical challenges of tracing African Americans' roots, but he also shares his famous subjects' memories and reflections about their families' reticence in discussing slavery or telling ancestors' stories about it. These elements combine in an intelligent narrative that will be accessible even to those who aren't genealogists. A closing chapter introduces some of the tools and methods for African American genealogical research, with bibliographic sources. This book is an able companion to the PBS series Gates hosted, but it stands on its own as well. Essential for genealogy collections; recommended for all public and high school libraries.
—Emily-Jane Dawson
Introduction: Family Matters 1
Prefatory Notes on the African Slave Trade 15
Maya Angelou 23
Quincy Jones 41
Morgan Freeman 58
Tina Turner 80
Peter J. Gomes 104
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot 130
Tom Joyner 153
Benjamin Carson 179
Oprah Winfrey 200
Whoopi Goldberg 225
Mae Jemison 242
T. D. Jakes 260
Linda Johnson Rice 287
Kathleen Henderson 308
Jackie J Oyner-Kersee 325
Don Cheadle 344
Chris Rock 361
Bliss Broyard 380
Chris Tucker 397
How TO TRACE YOUR OWN ROOTS 415
Index 427
Overview
Unlike most white Americans who, if they are so inclined, can search their ancestral records, identifying who among their forebears was the first to set foot on this country’s shores, most African Americans, in tracing their family’s past, encounter a series of daunting obstacles. Slavery was a brutally efficient nullifier of identity, willfully denying black men and women even their names. Yet, from that legacy of slavery, there have sprung generations who’ve struggled, thrived, and lived extraordinary lives.For too long, African Americans’ family trees have been barren of branches, but, very recently, advanced genetic testing techniques, combined ...