Black History is American History

The actor, Morgan Freeman, stated that Black history is American history. I agree, 100%. You cannot separate the two histories. They are a part of the whole. This is even more evident if you sit down with a few Black friends and chit chat on ancestry. That is when one realizes that our histories are mixed in together with the DNA.

Here’s what I am addressing.

Last Saturday, after a Toastmaster’s speech contest, there were six of us Toastmasters that went to lunch together. During lunch the subject of ancestry came up. Talk about timing and the inspiration of the gods! The discussion intrigued me because ancestry is as fascinating as it gets. And, at our table, we were a true American hodgepodge. Three mostly Europeans, and the other three were “people of color”: one is Asian and two are Black. The Black Americans at the table and I share some family names. More on that a bit later.

It is tough for Black Americans to dig into the past because information is scarce when it comes to the slaves from Africa. It is also scarce when you think about the small farmers or business people who had slaves who were of African descent. Did their family names get passed on to their workers after emancipation? I have read the stories, primary information narratives, from former slaves. Like most primary sources of history, that is where you learn the real stories of what life was like on those plantations. I’d like to read more narratives on the smaller farms and the businesses that employed slaves.

This aspect intrigues me because I once read a story about a slave in Louisiana who had a side gig making boats. He was paid for it.

For my novel, The Time Chair Diary, Book 2, Underground, I delved into this history of slavery, and heroes like Harriet Tubman. The title, “Underground” is about getting slaves to freedom on the underground railroad. Many Quakers were involved in this enterprise. Of all the Americans, the Quakers put their money and actions where their mouths were to rid the United States of this sin. Because slavery was most decidedly a sin. Of course slavery is practiced to this day, but that doesn’t mean its okay. It means the eradication of the practice is an ongoing enterprise.

The first book of the Time Chair Diary, Big Battles in Trenton, as well as Underground, is written for a younger reader, from about middle school age, and up. My goal was to tell the history of America as an adventure story. The time machine in this story is made from a comfy chair. The time traveler is an 11 year old precocious girl, Ell. Yes, I wanted a girl in this story, not another boy. Girls are capable of adventures outside of going to the mall with their friends. Ell is all about history: The past. She wants to know how it really was, “back there” so when she stumbles upon The Professor, and his time machine, she is more than ready, mentally, to take a journey.

The first journey Ell takes, is on purpose. Her trip takes her back to Trenton, during the American War for Independence. The second trip is a mistake. And it has to do with that damn dog, Plato, a springer spaniel. She picks him up, well, I should say, he chases her, during Book One. And then he gets transported to the year 1974, via the time chair. Which means the chair malfunctions at times. Like just about every time Ell is around it.

Say, what do you want from an 11 year old kid? Perfection? You will get the perfection from the adventure! No malfunction, no adventure.

Now, back to the ancestry thing. Ell’s last name is Evans. Indeed, her real name is Laura Evans. Laura Evans was my great aunt who died in 1912, from tuberculosis, when she was 22 years old. I was named after her. Great aunt Laura had just received her teaching certificate when she died. Which means she was hopeful of overcoming the disease. But TB was, and still is, the greatest killing disease on planet Earth. I had, on my paternal side, a great-grandfather, great-grandmother, and great uncle, James, all succumbing to the disease. (My deceased brother, James, was named after our great uncle.) On my maternal side, my grandmother died from this dreadful bacterium.

The irony here is that I feel like I picked up this teaching habit from my great aunt. So this ancestry of ours intertwines, as Carl Jung suggests, through that DNA. But wait, there’s more. One of the Black participants in the luncheon discussion is an Evans. The other has Hunter in her family, which is another name that I have in mine. My Hunters were from Missouri and my Evans from Arkansas. Could I be related to my fellow Toastmasters? I could be. The Evans clan is huge in the United States. My line arrived here in about 1683. And they lived in the South. I suggest that part of the Evans clan was immersed in that Southern World of plantations with slaves as their workers.

All this means I have lots of family out there, and I like that. On my maternal side, I have a bit of Nigerian running around inside. Nigeria supplied a great deal of the human beings that were slaves. The study of that population is also quite fascinating. But that is a story for another day.

Back to Ell and her second mishap adventure with the time chair. The first Time Chair Diary is available as an audible book. Now I am recording Underground. Recording it is too much fun! What a risky business Ell finds herself in, including the change in her appearance!

Underground was published in 2016, however, I am just now getting around to recording it. It is strange, that even though one writes a book, one can forget plot points. When I read it over in preparation for this recording, I had forgotten how much fun this story is! Well, American history is a wild and crazy ride.

The irony is I started recording this book, with a plot that evolves around black history, in February, Black History Month. I am halfway through the recording. It will be finished before the end of the month. I did not do this on purpose, it just happened that way with the old schedule.

The plot takes place in that infamous year, 1854. I say infamous, because that is when those politicians in Washington DC, decided to change the laws on runaway slaves. It used to be a runaway could cross into a free state and be free, the owners could not kidnap a runaway. In 1854, the law changed. A slaver could claim an owner’s “property” anywhere in the United States. Slavers became quite the business. Slavers were odious people.

A part of the plot involves individuals who are the offsprings of their white owners. And how that stirs the old pot in those households. The story begins with a slave, called Lamentations, who has run away. He is searching for Harriet Tubman in order to get his sister out of Maryland. He promised his dying mother he would. Well, when a man promises something to his mother, all hell can break loose. In search of Mrs. Tubman, Lamentations stumbles onto the Time Chair, and accidentally, activates it. And that is how Ell meets him, and gets herself caught up in that mission to find Marini, the sister, and get her out of slavery. Ell proves her grit by helping Lamentations in this endeavor.

See why I am having so much fun relating these characters?

I will let you know when this book becomes available in audio format. In the meantime, you can read it. And then pass it on.

After I finish the book I am currently writing, Leadership in Literature, I will get back to the Time Chair Diary, and write that third installment. Ell is a teenager, Princeton bound, in the story of Book 3.

In the meantime, I have new cousin relationships to explore. Now that I know I have Taino DNA, that gives me an Asian connection. I truly am Heinz 57. Which means the world is full of my cousins…

I have reached the goal of my youth; to be a worldly person: That is, a citizen of the world.