Welcome back to the African Roots Podcast! You can reach me at AfricanRootsPodcast@gmail.com
I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend, and I suspect that many of you are busy preparing yourself for the upcoming holiday season. But I hope that with all of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season that you will also slow down and just enjoy the time with friends and family.
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National Archives hosts Brown Bag Gathering for Thursday December 11th, from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM in Lecture Room B at the National Archives in College Park, MD. If you are interested in getting an introduction to the processing and use of the case files, then you might want to bring your lunch to this gathering at the National Archives in College Park. This will be a casual meeting to listen and learn. Next week’s event will be coordinated by staffers M’Lisa Whitney, and Christina Jones. I hope that other informal gatherings will be planned in the future by other genealogists, no matter where you are.
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Milestone Year Approaches – 150 Year Later
As this critical year approaches, with 150 years of freedom. But of course we all know that the events of the past week have put the nation through a lot and this week has been difficult for some of us. The events of the past week have presented us with three cases that have caught the attention of the nation. Young men were legally killed by officers in the line of duty, and in none of the three, was there an indictment, or call for further investigation. Two of the cases will always be in dispute as to what happened, but one of the cases was filmed, and yet, the decision was made not to pursue the deaths further.
How do we address this? And how do we share this with the next generation and explain our own thoughts? The sentiments that we have heard expressed even by our leaders some whom are extremely hostile yet powerful politicians in Congress have little sympathy and little concern. I hope that you are all writing and recording how you are coping with these times of open hostility to people of color and to people who are without power. This is our charge to write and to share how and what we are doing. Part of the record is how we are responding. We are living through history, and even last night, even in Arizona, another similar incident has occurred.
These are sobering times, and as we listen to our politicians judge others—we, as researchers, as record keepers, and a people with feelings and thoughts–I hope you are writing what you are thinking, because generations will want to know what you did, what you thought and how you responded. As we live through this history—-let us record these trying times and let us teach the next generation not to turn away and not turn a blind eye. 100 years ago we saw many of our communities destroyed such as Catcher Arkansas, Harrison Arkansas, Pierce City Missouri, Rosewood Florida–and so many more. And now those who ran people from their home, and who took over those communities are simply shrugging and looking away. Let’s record what we see, what we feel and not forget to tell this very sad story on the eve of the sesquicentennial of our freedom.
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Some Interesting Writing Initiatives
I have been looking at a few writing initiatives in recent weeks, and though I did not participate, I did examine the NANO writing project. NANO is part of the National Novel Writing Month initiative. I took an interest, because I do see that putting the family narrative into an historical fiction format might give some flavor to the story and take many people beyond the family chart structure of pursuing family history. We are doing more than constructing trees.
And there is the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors that sponsors a writing competition each year. You may want to tell some of your family narratives and this might be a great way to put that story out there in a special way.
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Last night’s guest on Bernice Bennett’s show was Dr. Maurice Gleason who is a doctor from the UK. He has an interest in UK History, and the role of Irish people in the Atlantic Slave Trade. He provided some unique information on a number of databases, as well as some unique historical points about places such as the tiny island of Montserrat, and their celebration of holidays such as St. Patrick’s and other Irish celebrations. It was a fascinating discussion, indeed. As you know Ms. Bennett’s show airs every Thursday evening at 9:00pm on Blog Talk Radio.
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Well, thank you for listening, for sharing information with me. Also, please have a great week of researching (and Christmas shopping), and don ‘t forget to keep researching, keep documenting, and keep sharing what you find!
