“If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. ” - Michael Crichton
I've been asked many times why I am so interested in genealogy. I like to say it's because it was something my great grandmother cared about but that would be a lie. The truth is I have been interested in my family's history for as long as I can remember. I think my obsession with history began early on in my life.
Reading has always been a part of my life. For as long as I can remember I was losing myself in a book. The first time I learned about African-American history was in a picture book. "The Story of Ruby Bridges" was one of the first books that introduced me to the struggles my ancestors went through, the book's pictures and its story were simple but I was enthralled. I was fascinated by the amount of courage shown by a girl not much older than I and yet completely confused as to why she needed that courage in the first place.
I still remember the day I learned the names, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Harriet Tubman, W.E.B DuBois, Fredrick Douglas, Phillis Wheatley. These names became more than just names to me they became my greatest role models. Their courage brought me strength and their struggles are what now give me freedom. I read and studied all I could about these people but I also knew that there were others who struggled right along side them.
I was young when I first saw the image of a lynching. It changed my life forever. Still to this day when I see pictures, films, or read stories about lynchings my stomach does flips. Whether it's in a story or a photograph it seems like the men, women, and children suffering such a terrible end are never given names. To me that was always the ultimate insult to the ultimate sacrifice. I always saw myself, my father, my brother in those photographs and I knew that it, very likely, could be an ancestor of mine. I decided that whether that person's blood ran through my veins or not I would give names to all the nameless sufferers that came before me.
Whether you are African-American, European, Native American, or a mix of a million ethnicities there is suffering and sacrifice in your blood. You are a leaf of a much greater tree. Don't let their sacrifice be forgotten. Be your ancestors' story.
