This has been a bruising time for the African-American community—as bruising as any in recent memory. The tragic…
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In the 1920s and 1930s, Ada “Bricktop” Smith reigned as the grande dame of the Paris nightclub scene. T.S. Eliot…
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I’m 28 years old and on a mission to find out more about my roots, particularly on my mother’s side of the family.…
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My family, descended from Thomas Chaffe (1635), is well-documented in The Chaffee Genealogy by William Chaffee…
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Many of us have them: an old family story about an ancestor who was defiant in the face of oppression or who simply…
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From which African countries did the slaves brought to Virginia come?
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Eleven years before Emmett Till’s bloated and brutalized corpse was displayed on the pages of Jet magazine as proof…
My great-grandfather William Elijah Gantt was allegedly born in Charles County, Md., Feb. 4, 1886. He was a…
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I found my maternal great-great-great-grandmother, Eliza Simpson, on an 1840 Free Persons Census list, living in…
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Say the name aloud of our new ancestor, Julian Bond, and generations of black Americans will think of a clear, proud…
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Last month marked the 176th anniversary of the slave-led mutiny aboard the schooner Amistad. That act of bravery on…
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This week, we decided to tackle a common question that we get from people researching their roots:
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In 1972, seven years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, abolishing tools and tactics…
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Editor’s note: With the U.S. Embassy reopening in Havana on July 20, The Root is giving some insight and perspective…
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Editor’s note: With the U.S. Embassy reopening in Havana on July 20, The Root is giving some insight and perspective…
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Julia Ann Scott (born about 1840, died in December 1893) was my maternal great-great-grandmother, a “mulatto” woman…
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Some called her “Glorious Gloria.” Others referred to her as the second coming of Harriet Tubman. Coincidentally,…
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