Ancestor's Footprints with Bernice Alexander Bennett

Panelist will discuss A Mind to Stay - White Plantations - Black Homeland. This story researched and written by Sydney Nathans begins in 1844, when North Carolina planter Paul Cameron bought 1,600 acres near Greensboro, Alabama and sent out 114 enslaved people to cultivate cotton and enlarge his fortune. Syd Nathans is a historian and author of "A Mind to Stay," which tells the story of a white pl...

  After Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, thousands of Japanese and Japanese Americans were incarcerated in “Internment Camps.” German and Italians were also interned, but in smaller numbers. The various sites of confinement and the records created will be examined, covering the period of time immediately preceding World War II through resettlement and redress. Linda Harms Okazaki is a fourth-gen...

  For 21,609 young African American men who called North Carolina home, the First World War meant leaving families and familiar Tar Heel communities. The military service and sacrifice of those tens of thousands of black North Carolinians, however, are not well known among historians or the public. Their contributions, individually and collectively, have been generally ignored, simplistically rend...

In 1838, Georgetown University and the Maryland Jesuits sold nearly 300 enslaved men, women and children to sugar plantations in southern Louisiana in orderto recuse the college from bankruptcy.  Until late 2015, Georgetown University folklore said that all of them quickly succumbed to fever in the malodorous swamp world of Louisiana, leaving no trace and no descendants.   But this wasn’t true. Th...

  Lynn Rainville is the Acting Dean of Sweet Briar College, where she also directs the Tusculum Institute for Public History. Although her PhD is in Near Eastern archaeology, she has spent the last two decades studying historic American cemeteries, segregated schools, enslaved communities, poor farms, and World War I. She is the author of several books, includingthe recently released Virginia and...

The O'Kelleys will discuss building bridges and healing the divide in the racial culture of America. They are an example that the horrible system from the past of slavery doesn’t have to linger into hate or dislike between races today. Many Americans share DNA of mixed ancestry.  We must come together as a nation understanding that we really are all family! Joyce Ann Huston from St. Louis, MO is a...

This show will focus on the value of researching enslaved ancestors, free people of color and identifying the slaveholders in tax records in an Urban community such as Baltimore in the early 19th century. Donna Tyler Hollie received an MA and a Ph. D. in  History. After retirement as an administrator with the Baltimore City Department of Social Services, she served for thirteen years as professor...

The Price for Their Pound of Flesh includes photographs, illustrations, newspaper clippings, advertisements, extensive lists of appraisal and sale values, quotes, poems, letters, and songs from the time period. Additionally, Berry’s focus on sharing a diversity of stories of and from enslaved people illuminates their experiences and feelings in direct response to their understanding of their monet...

 Professional Genealogist. Kenyatta D. Berry will discuss her Slave Ancestral Research on Universities Studying Slavery. Kenyatta D. Berry,  Professional Genealogist, Entrepreneur and Attorney with over 20 years of experience in genealogical research and writing. She began her genealogical journey whilst in law school studying at the State Library of Michigan in Lansing. A native of Detroit, Berry...

  This discussion is on documenting ourselves and leaving a blue print for future genealogist.  We are the era of baby boomers; we have seen and participated in a lot of history in our life time. It will take 72-years or more after our death for our family to research us and, we can leave them a blue print so that they do not have to wait to find out about us. Char McCargo Bah is the CEO/Owner of...

Antoinette Harrell a Peonage Detective has spent countless hours in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., conducting peonage research in Class 50 (Peonage) Litigation Case Files, 1907 – 1973.  The Class 50 litigation case files were created or accumulated by the Civil Rights Division in carrying out the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) responsibilities in matters arising under statutes implement...

The GLEAMNS Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historical Preservation Site has been established on the campus of GLEAMNS Human Resources Commission  is located in the old African-American Brewer Hospital, the site and source of African-American healthcare in Greenwood County before desegregation.  The site, adjacent to and part of the old Brewer School has its origins back to 1872, was chosen because of its hi...

Andre Kearns's research comes from the perspective of an African American genealogy hobbyist. Advances in DNA testing offer African Americans the possibility of leapfrogging brick walls created by slavery to connect to ancestral roots by analyzing family history documented within DNA.  Andre will share strategies he’s used to advance his research as a hobbyist and highlight how he’s leveraged DNA...

In 2017, Kathy Kanika Marshall wrote, The Ancestors Are Smiling! which is a collection of uplifting, funny, touching and sometimes harrowing real life stories, creatively told by Kathy Marshall’s ancestors and their descendants. For example, Marshall’s great-grandmother, Ella, worked for a congressman who helped convince President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, making it p...

Anita R. Henderson is known by many as The Author’s Midwife. She is owner of The Write Image, and creator of The Genealogist's Writing Room, an online community helping genealogists write and share the stories of their ancestors and their journey to find them. Her work with professionals and family history researchers has resulted in multiple award-winning books and has helped them grow their over...

Host Bernice Bennett welcomes Dr. Evelyn McDowell, LaBrenda Garrett Nelson, and Muriel D. Roberts for a discussion on a new lineage society - the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage. The discussion will focus on the organization (creation & purpose); why join a lineage society and the process to join this society. Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSM...

Host Bernice Bennett welcomes author, Michael W. Twitty for a discussion of his new book, The Cooking Gene - A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South. Michael W. Twitty is also the author of Afroculinaria a food blog. As a food writer, independent scholar, culinary historian, and historical interpreter, he is personally charged with preparing, preserving and promoting A...

   "The Civil War is sometimes called the Second Haitian Revolution.  For over seventy years pro-slavers feared Haiti, and the enslaved and abolitionists found great hope from Toussaint Louverture and Haiti.  Marvin T. Jones details the actions of enslaved and abolitionists who were encouraged by the Haitian Revolution, Haiti’s own involvement in offering freedom to people of color. And, why Haiti...

 Angela P. Dodson documents one of the longest, most hard-won struggles for civil rights in our country’s history. Her approach to this history is inclusive, detailing the contributions of activists from various movements, women and men, of different races, religions and politics who helped bring about the victory to secure the right to vote for women. She also documents women’s political gains si...

Wendy Wilson Fall and Teresa Vega will share the history and origin of Malagasy Roots and how DNA testing can help identify your Malagasy ancestry. Wendy Wilson Fall is Associate Professor and Program Chair of the Africana Studies Program at Lafayette College.  Wilson-Fall has a PhD from Howard University’s African Studies Center, with a concentration in Social Anthropology. Her research engages q...

The African American Odyssey of John Kizell (A South Carolina Slave Returns to Fight the Slave Trade in His African Homeland) Join host Bernice Bennett and co-host Natonne Elaine Kemp for an engaging conversation with author and historian Kevin G. Lowther about the the life of a Sierra Leonean who survived slavery in Charleston, South Carolina, and served with British forces during the American Re...

Leontyne Clay Peck shares the story of her journey from Piedmont, WV to the Virginia Piedmont, better known as the land of the Presidents-Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. Since age 10, Leontyne has heard "whispers" from the ancestors and intrigued by family connections. Her fourteen year journey  revealed her family connections to Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, President Thomas Jefferson and most r...

Rebroadcast How the courts dealt with wills bequeathing property or freedom to mixed race children. Fathers of Conscience examines high-court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed-race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and esta...

Andre Kearns's research comes from the perspective of an African American genealogy hobbyist. Advances in DNA testing offer African Americans the possibility of leapfrogging brick walls created by slavery to connect to ancestral roots by analyzing family history documented within DNA.  Andre will share strategies he’s used to advance his research as a hobbyist and highlight how he’s leveraged DNA...

  Gigi Best is an Author, Historian, Genealogist, Poet, Playwright, Journalist, Speaker and Antiquarian Bookstore Owner. While earning her A.A. and B.S. Degrees, she was awarded Who’s Who in American Universities and Colleges. While in her M. A. Program in English Literature and History, she received  the All American Scholar awards. As a Federal Retiree she earned the Citation for Exemplary Civil...